For The Love Of George is a 2018 comedy about a jilted wife who leaves her cheating husband in England and sets off to LA hoping to meet who she believes is the perfect man.
The romcom would seem a genre without much wriggle room for innovation: guy/girl falls in love with guy/girl only to be hurt by said guy/girl and sets off on a whacky adventure of self-discovery. Maria Burton‘s latest addition to this mix, For The Love Of George, doesn’t stray too far from the formula, putting it all together with all the right bits, albeit whipping it up with some genuine fun, plenty of charm, and one heckuva lead performance.
Poppy Wakefield (Nadia Jordan) lives in England, about to celebrate her longtime husband Stephen’s (Henry Hereford) birthday, but when he butt dials her while he’s right in the middle of an affair, well, she takes it upon herself to make a big change. Does that mean kicking him out, getting a haircut and starting over? Not exactly. She does kick him out, but instead of facing reality on the homefront, gets on a plane and flies to Los Angeles to meet the one guy she’s long dreamt would be her perfect man: George Clooney. The George Clooney. Now in LA, she moves in with her gay pal Justin (Rex Lee) and goes on a quest to fulfill her destiny.
So I know what you’re thinking. Another out of touch quirky female-driven romantic fantasy full of whacky characters, pop song heavy montages, and loads of silly contrived comedy encounters. In truth, you wouldn’t be too wrong. For The Love Of George is all of this and more, pulling out all the stops to deliver precisely what it intends. Surprisingly though, what saves this from the seemingly bottomless pit of so many others like it is Jordan herself and the film’s great writing. That might seem like a cop out, but making a movie like this click as well as it does can’t be easy. Jordan is the film’s screenwriter and as she is writing for herself, ends up taking some welcome turns out of the well worn ruts. At the heart of this comedy is a story much deeper than it appears, with a main character far more grounded than the premise might promise.
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Clooney is not really the dream for Poppy of course, but rather the Macguffin, steering her in one direction so that she can well, you know. Along the way, she sees a therapist (Rosanna Arquette) and a psychic (Kristen Johnston) who try to help her understand what appears to be an obsession, while she’s further supported by her boss (Marina Sirtis) back home, who gives her a new assignment that keeps her in La La Land. It’s all clean and neat, yet Jordan packs real punch in her performance, refusing to be the clumsy, ugly duckling type that emerges anew in the end, but rather a woman deeply hurt by profound betrayal, coping in a city that’s not exactly known for being all that stable. At times, she fits right in, but of course, she unearths some truths about herself that begin to open her eyes.
While all the female empowerment you expect is here, with women of all kinds of personalities, what resonates more is the relationships. Poppy is orbited by a collection of people and situations that come to reshape her, and sure, most we see coming a mile away, but that doesn’t strip any of the fun from seeing what they do. Led by Jordan’s incredibly earnest and genuinely funny performance, For The Love Of George is light and breezy stuff, but it’s also very entertaining and makes for a movie that’s terrifically satisfying.