The Perfect Man (2006)

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Foreign

"Nothing is Perfect After All"

In the absence of a father and a husband for her mother, one might have done what Holly Hamilton did for the salvation of Jean—create a fictional suitor for her mother and set a restaurant in the verge of destruction.

Produced by Marc Platt and directed by Mark Rosman, The Perfect Man is about a teenager named Holly (Hilary Duff), who dubs herself as “the girl on the move” because her mother, Jean (Heather Locklear), runs away whenever she is on a relationship crisis. Holly conceives an illusory perfect partner in the person of Ben (Chris Noth) with the intention of lessening her mother’s desperation. Just when things are perfectly coming about, Holly’s good intentions suddenly went off course.

Basically, the movie centered on the mother – daughter relationship of the Hamiltons, with a little romance on the side. It depicted the single parents’ usual hardships of raising children all alone, plus the children’s numerous complaints of living with a single mother who moves from one place to another every after failed relationship and who is in despair to meet the man of her life time and again.

Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff were able to present the natural rapport of a typical mother-daughter team. Locklear was able to bring some realism to the struggle that single mothers undergo while Duff was able to play her teenage character well and ended up coming clean with her lies. Chris Noth, on the other hand, was able to project the image of a perfect gentle man and a perfect suitor that he was expected to be.

This 100-minute film is perceptibly set in the 20th century in that it showed how people of today communicate through the World Wide Web—instant messaging, e-mails, and blogging.

On its downside, The Perfect Man was bombarded with series of comic acts and scenarios that range from implausible to outlandish, and that only kids would adore. Take for example the classic mother – daughter dance performance in the Hamiltons' living room. Additionally, more than half of the cast gradually disappeared as the movie progressed. Also, the character of Lance, a homosexual, added nothing to the plot but comic relief.

All in all, the story, less the downside and more on the search for Mr. Perfect would have been great. The film is just right for those who appreciate feel-good movies. Teen crowds will find Hilary Duff and her new goodies as cute as ever, but the grown-ups (Heather Locklear and Chris Noth) are the strong suit in The Perfect Man.