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Starring Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd. ![[Photo]](/photos/objectofmyaffection2.jpg) The following anecdote is quite sad and, unfortunately, quite true. When I grabbed The Object of My Affection off the shelf at the video store, I honestly thought I was renting that other Jennifer Aniston film where she hooks up with another guy to gain the affection of Kevin Bacon. Put succinctly, that is not true. The movie I was thinking of was Picture Perfect. In essence, this would be like renting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and expecting to see Star Wars. Check that; for a movie critic to make a mistake like this, it would be like renting a video cassette and then expecting to eat it for dessert. Aniston has made quite a name for herself on her hit TV show, Friends. But, like co-star David Schwimmer, Aniston has had some trouble making the transition from a small screen star to a silver screen star. Aniston has fallen into a pattern of repetitiously playing the same type of 'nice girl' characters in the slew of romantic comedies that, should they be laid next to one another, are virtually indiscernible from each other (so indiscernible that movie critics mistake one film for another). With the exception of her appearance in '93's Leprechaun ("no comment"), Aniston's films, Til There Was You, She's the One, Picture Perfect, and The Object of My Affection are all light-hearted films involving young, white, professionals, starring very photogenic people who just don't exist in real life. The Object of My Affection stands out from the rest of Aniston's films, because it has more historically frowned upon sexual relationships than any other film I can think of, including Basic Instinct. My problem with this movie came when I began to ask myself why screenwriter, Wendy Wasserstein, who adapted the story from Stephen McCauley's novel, thought I would be entertained by this story. The characters are quite shallow--being gay or heterosexual qualifies as a character trait--and the predicament Aniston, Rudd, and Pankow are involved in is one of those things that I can't fathom ever happening to anyone, much less myself. I like to think of myself as a reasonably level-headed kind of guy, but, for the life of me, can't figure out where the connections these characters make come from, or why they choose to make the decisions that they do--who has ever heard the statement, "Honey, I'm pregnant. I want to break up." When you get down to the heart of The Object of My Affection, you are looking at a romantic comedy with no possibility of romance between its male and female lead--unless there is something about gay men that I don't know about that attracts them to nubile, brunettes that look like Aniston--without many laughs. It's a good thing I can't kick my own ass, because I was looking to do just that after choosing to screen this film.
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![[Photo]](/photos/objectofmyaffection1.jpg)
Aniston plays Nina, a single woman living in New York, who is rooming with a gay man (historically frowned upon sexual relationship # 1), played by Paul Rudd, while she is dating John Pankow, Ira on NBC's Mad About You. Aniston discovers she is pregnant with Pankow's child (2), and decides she wants to raise the baby with Rudd acting as her child's father (3). Rudd, however, is taken with a handsome, young actor (4), who is currently living with a 65 year old, gay, theater critic (5). Aniston attempts to seduce Rudd into staying with her (6), but Rudd, being gay, decides he'd like to be with a man instead. So Aniston begins to date a helpful, black police officer (7), and in the end, everybody remains friends with everybody and I threw a brick at the TV.