Just Married on DVD

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Sarah McNermey (BRITTANY MURPHY) and Tom Leezak (ASHTON KUTCHER) star in "Just Married," a comedy about a young couple, who find that marriage takes more than just a great deal of infatuation.

Tom Leezak is a late night radio traffic reporter whose good looks, blue collar lifestyle and unrelenting passion for sports makes him the ultimate alpha-male. Sarah is a beautiful, free-spirited writer whose family is as wealthy as it is snobbish.

One day, while Tom is playing football on the beach, he throws the ball through the air and by accident it lands in Sarah’s face, knocking her off her feet. Within seconds they are madly in love.

Shortly after they meet, they announce their engagement. Sarah’s family has some reservations, but decides to accept Tom anyway. Sarah ignores her family’s attempts to talk sense into her and follows her heart to marry her knight in rusty armor.

After the wedding, the young couple sets off for their honeymoon in Italy. If they only knew what was in store for them — Murphy’s law (If anything can go wrong, it probably will) — to the hilt.

It starts off with their car. They expected a nice beautiful American car only to be stuck with perhaps the smallest type of vehicle, even by European standards. It is reminiscent of a big yellow box, driving down the street. Tom and Sarah’s stay in a beautiful castle in the Alps, starts off nice enough, until Tom plugs in an electrical device at 110 Volts into a European outlet at 220 volts and brings down the entire electrical system off the castle.

The couple gets kicked out of their beautiful castle and they end up in one of the dumpiest hotels in Italy. Without giving away the movie, one incident after the other happens, causing the newlyweds to want a divorce by the end of the honeymoon. Some of the things that happen are a result of just bad luck, but most of their troubles, are a direct result of their immaturity.

For instance, right before Tom plugs in the electrical device, Sarah warns him that he shouldn’t do this, because of the different voltage requirements. If he had listened to what she was saying, most of the problems wouldn’t have occurred, because everything from there on out was just a domino effect.

The film was inspired by screenwriter Sam Harper’s chaotic experiences on his own honeymoon in Italy, 15 years ago. “My wife and I started fighting on the first night on our honeymoon," laughs Harper. "We had a month in Italy with all these great places to stay and see, but we were at each other’s throats the entire time. By the end of the honeymoon, she was staring at me with a look of buyer’s remorse.

“Thankfully," Harper adds, "my wife and I are still happily married. But everyone I have spoken to on the subject, has had at least one day, or at least a couple hours on their honeymoon where they were looking at the person across the bed and thinking to themselves, ‘What did I do?’"

Years later, Harper envisioned a story that would explore the universal and often hilarious struggles of a young married couple. “It took over a decade for me to process that moment in my life and turn it into a screenplay," says the screenwriter.

Harper’s script found its way to producer Robert Simonds – who ironically happened to be returning from his own Italian honeymoon. "Sam had just finished writing a different project for me, and his JUST MARRIED screenplay happened to be in my pack of scripts to read on the long flight back from Italy," recalls Simonds. "I got about 25 pages into the script when I called Sam from the plane and told him I would buy it. I thought his screenplay was funny and authentic, with Sam’s insight into marriage being spot-on. His story is emotionally disorienting in the same way being in an intense relationship can be disorienting."

While the film was not quite as funny as I expected, it did carry some great lessons. “A good marriage takes a lot of hard work and commitment" and "selfishness will destroy a marriage" are a few that come to mind. The movie is a bit crude at times, but overall, because of the lessons that can be learned from the film, I would recommend it.

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