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— by Ben Cosgrove
While breaking up is hard to do, sometimes remaining broken up is even harder. And now, with the launch of the MTV show "The X Effect," it's damn near impossible, as the show takes two old flames and puts them back together for a romantic weekend to see if there are any sparks left. In the spirit of the show, here are a few movies about the power of love (and lust, and other drives) to mess up quiet, seemingly under-control lives.
 "The Wedding Date" (2005)
Kat (Debra Messing) and Nick (Dermot Mulroney) play a seemingly mismatched pair who — after beginning their acquaintance on purely commercial, escort-service-based footing — end up falling for one another. The twist here, in a gender-swapping mirror image of "Pretty Woman," is that Nick's the escort this time around, and Kat's the one who's in need of arm candy so she can: 1) Keep her family and friends' tongues from wagging over that fact that she's in her 30s and still single; and 2) make her ex seethe with jealousy. What saves the film from becoming just another bobbing nonentity in a sea of rudderless romantic comedies is the chemistry between the two leads: Mulroney's Nick is funny and low-key, while Messing's Kat is neurotic (but not too neurotic) and sweet. The two characters actually seem to like one another. Imagine that.
"Along Came Polly" (2004)
With Ben Stiller playing a button-down professional "risk assessor" and Jennifer Aniston as his loose-cannon, devil-may-care love interest, "Along Came Polly" is a rare bird: the gross-out romantic comedy. (Oh, did we mention Stiller spends much of the film puking and trying to overcome severe irritable bowel syndrome? Hardy har har.) The breakup aspect of the film is, admittedly, a bit lame — Debra Messing plays Stiller's character's wife, who crawls back begging forgiveness after running off with a scuba instructor while on their honeymoon — but Aniston and Stiller play their parts expertly and to the hilt. Finally, there's Hank Azaria as the totally buff, longhaired, profoundly unsexy scuba guy, Claude, who appears throughout in nothing but a Speedo. Now that's comedy.
"Head of State" (2003)
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We all know someone who has cruelly broken up with a partner and then, when that partner suddenly "makes it," tries to wriggle his or her way back into the picture. In "Head of State," the role falls to Robin Givens. She plays the ex-fiancee of a small-time Washington, D.C., politician (Chris Rock) who is plucked from obscurity and wins the White House after the presidential and vice-presidential candidates from his party are killed in a dual air crash. (Don't ask.) Givens plays the part with something quite close to schizoid mania — and while a little bit of this sort of chaos goes a long way, dissed lovers will likely enjoy her comeuppance.
"Sweet Home Alabama" (2002)
As the old World War I tune put it, "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" For Melanie (Reese Witherspoon), a successful fashion designer in New York, the question appears moot: She's seen Paris, New York and other glamorous burgs, and she is not going back to the farm, either literally or figuratively. That is, until she has to face her past — and Jake (Josh Lucas), the husband who won't divorce her — and is forced to decide whether it might not be such a bad thing to trade in all her Gotham success for a shot at happiness in her Alabama hometown.
"The Wedding Singer" (1998)
"The Wedding Singer" was the last movie Adam Sandler starred in before improbably joining the handful of Tinseltowners who can pull down a $20 million paycheck for a few weeks' work (and before, perhaps not incidentally, he started making seriously unfunny flicks like "Little Nicky," "Mr. Deeds" and "The Longest Yard"). Here, however, Sandler is just about perfect as the titular Robbie Hart, while Drew Barrymore is at her sweet, goofy best as his apparent soul mate, Julia. Trouble is, they're both engaged to other people — really, really awful people (played with relish by Angela Featherstone and Matthew Glave). It's a lighter-than-air concoction that just happens to work beautifully.
"Addicted to Love" (1997)
Sam (Matthew Broderick) and Maggie (Meg Ryan) have something in common — they've been dumped by their significant others. Not only that, but those significant others are now steaming up windows together all over town. So, like any rational pair of jilted exes would, Mags and Sam join forces to try and break up the happy couple. Despite their occasionally uncomfortable forays into something much closer to stalking than to the actions of the merely heartbroken, Broderick and Ryan are quite funny in their respective roles and even, at times, evince some real chemistry.
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Photos: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
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