Don't Go Breaking My Heart

Hot on the heels of the success of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral comes another politely middle-class British romantic comedy. Hey, wait a sec, what year is it, and why is this politely middle-class British romantic comedy from 1999 being released now? Don't Go Breaking My Heart is a bland-as-cream-crackers rom-com with a touch of inspirational sports drama on the side. Anthony Edwards is Tony, an American ex-pat trying to eke out a living as a sports psychologist, who happens to fall in love with a seemingly free-spirited widow named Suzanne (Jenny Seagrove). What Dr. Mark… I mean, Tony doesn't know is that Suzanne has been hypnotized by a playboy dentist named Frank (Charles Dance), whose supposedly foolproof plan to get her to fall in love with him goes awry when she's subconsciously swept off her feet by the upstart American. When Suzanne goes to a psychiatrist (Tom Conti, channelling Peter Sellers) who reveals the hypnotic ruse, she drops Tony and plots revenge on Frank. This all sounds like a potentially nutty farce, but instead plays like a very mild-mannered made-for-TV movie. In a weird way, it's a difficult film to fault because it's so un-ambitious: the cast is amiable and, despite the general ridiculousness of the plot, everyone involved makes it work to the best of their ability. Peppered with watered down AM Gold on the soundtrack and middle-aged first-world problems, Don't Go Breaking My Heart seems quite literally conceived to cash-in on the intercontinental love triangle angle plied by Richard Curtis, et al. in the mid-'90s, which makes its appearance on DVD at this late date all the more puzzling. Oh, well, Anthony Edwards completists rejoice! The disc includes no special features to speak of, save for a trailer.