Tagline: The story of a family that wanted it all. Never settle.
The Perfect Man movie storyline. For the most part, single mom Jean Hamilton (Heather Locklear) is great at raising her teenage daughter Holly (Hilary Duff) and her sister, providing a home and being both a friend and a parent to her daughters. Everything’s usually just fine, great even. But then, once a boyfriend enters the picture, well, things start to slide from great. And it’s not Holly’s boyfriends that are causing the problems…it’s her mom’s.
To Holly, her mom’s dating habits aren’t exactly hard to recognize: she picks a guy not nearly good enough, and when the inevitable romance transforms into the unavoidable break-up, Jeans packs up Holly and her little sister and hustles onto the next city, hopeful that the next guy in the next town will be better.
Holly really wants her family to settle down, where she might have a chance at being a normal teenager-maybe even attend her first school dance. But more than that, Holly wants her mother to stop picking romantic duds that only end up breaking her heart. Why can’t Jean see how wonderful she is, realize the qualities in herself that endear her to her daughters, be happy with or without romance…in short, see herself through Holly’s eyes?
So who better to pick Jean’s potential datemate than Holly? Someone to keep Jean from encountering yet more heartache and doomed romance? As her mother’s short-lived, new city hopefulness begins to turn to desperation, Holly realizes she has no time to waste and comes up with a plan: she’ll invent a suitor for her mother-an amazing, perfect man to woo the single mom and save her from choosing yet another imperfect, second-rate guy. So what if he doesn’t really exist? Or at least, not exactly?
When Jean’s interest is piqued by her new secret admirer, Holly finds that it’ll take more than emails, letters and gifts to keep her distracted from the attentions of Lenny (Mike O’Malley), Jean’s hapless, well-meaning co-worker and current real-life suitor. So she enacts a little identity theft and borrows Ben, her friend’s uncle (Chris Noth), as the man behind the attentions-a suave, restaurant owner with looks and charm to spare.
Unfortunately for Holly, Ben may be too charming…at least the “Ben” she creates with the help of her new school buds Adam (Ben Feldman) and Ben’s niece Amy (Vanessa Lengies). As Jean and Ben’s “relationship” takes off, Holly and her co-conspirators find that maintaining the ruse is making them crazy. But for Holly, what’s important is keeping her mother happy and keeping their family in one place long enough to put down roots. Trouble is, Holly’s so diverted by the ever increasing, runaway deception that she almost misses her own perfect man when he comes along…
About the Production
Funny, fresh and full of surprises, The Perfect Man is a humorous story of love, longing and leaving and what can happen when good intentions go awry. At the story’s heart is the romantic notion of finding the perfect partner…and on the not-so-romantic flipside is a portrait of a family that’s just dealing with the ups and downs life brings while trying to stay together and stay put-at least, that’s what the story’s protagonist, teenager Holly Hamilton, is hoping for.
Producer Marc Platt, no stranger to comedy with his hits Legally Blonde and its sequel among his credits, found the premise of the film “witty and clever. The story had ideas and emotions that I cared about, and ones that I thought the audience would care about,” says Platt. What truly appealed to Platt was the idea that everyone has a destiny and that somewhere, there is someone for everyone.
But almost more than the romance of story, the strong family connection between mother and daughter-and how growing up can affect that dynamic-struck a chord with Platt. “As a father myself,” he continues, “I was also immediately drawn to the family aspect of the film, of a mom trying to raise her two daughters, and of a teenager who comes up with the idea that if she can find the perfect guy for her mom, maybe they’ll stay in one place for a while…and get the chance to become a real family unit.”
Director Mark Rosman says that he “found the concept of the script just wonderful. The fact that a daughter tries to find the perfect man for her mother is completely hilarious but, at the same time, very endearing. But what I found moving on an adult level is the truly universal theme of how mothers and daughters are connected-this is something every mother with a teen can relate to,” observes Rosman.
For the film’s young heroine, the free-spirited teen Holly Hamilton, filmmakers chose the charismatic and multi-talented Hilary Duff-the role and the actress seemed to fit as if tailor-made. “I can’t think of anyone besides Hilary to play this role,” says Platt. “She brings her own likeability to the role. Hilary is the kind of actress that is accessible to everyone, whatever age. She makes you root for her and root for the character she’s portraying. I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many young actors and performers throughout my career, and none has impressed me more than Hilary in terms of the kind of person she is, her generosity, her charm and her heart.”
Rosman, whose ongoing directorial history with Duff includes 11 episodes of the hit series Lizzie McGuire and, more recently, the feature film A Cinderella Story, agrees. “I thought this was a great vehicle for Hilary, and a great opportunity for her to do something that wasn’t just another high school story but, rather, a mother/daughter story.”
At the beginning of the film, Holly and her family embark upon yet another journey, relocating to a new town (this time around, Brooklyn) that will hopefully offer Holly’s mother, Jean, her longed for fresh start. In addition to the physical journey, however, are the personal ones, undertaken by mother and daughter-both of whom have lessons to learn about what it takes to make relationships (both familial and romantic) work.
At times, the roles in the film seem reversed as Holly finds herself cast as the nurturing mother, while her mother acts like, well, a typical teenager who quickly moves away from past mistakes without trying to locate the lessons they contain-theirs is indeed a complicated relationship, one that appealed to Hilary in her latest film vehicle.
“Holly loves her mom,” explains Hilary, “but she really disagrees with a lot of the ways she lives her life.” Part of what appealed to the performer was the chance to comically explore this kind of dynamic that does not figure into the relationship Hilary enjoys with her offscreen, real mother. “We’ve never gone through that weird `I hate you / I hate you, too’ stage,” says Hilary.
As Holly’s mother, Jean, searches for the perfect man, her daughters are temporarily left in the wake. “Along the way,” offers Locklear, who plays the romantically-challenged single mother, Jean, “she finally realizes where her priorities lie, and they are with her children.”
“Heather Locklear is incredible,” enthuses director Rosman. “She comes with this wonderful body of work, playing women who haven’t always been nice. Yet she is just the sweetest actress, very giving, and very generous to the other actors. Heather’s very creative and brings that creativity onto the set and she gets everyone involved. She and Hilary make a wonderful on-screen mother and daughter.”
That chemistry was true both on the screen and off. “Heather is such a genuinely nice person,” says Hilary, “and she’s so much fun to be around. I loved working with her. And who could get a cooler mom than Heather Locklear?”
Locklear also plays mom to six-year-old Zoe, a role won by Aria Wallace. Marc Platt calls young Wallace “an adorable, precocious, unique little girl who brought her charms not only to her character, but to everyone around her on the set.”
Casting an age-appropriate actress came with its unexpected challenges, however. Director Rosman recalls the second day of principal photography, when Wallace lost her two top front teeth. By then, several of the film’s later scenes had been shot, so a set of false teeth-replete with two front chompers-were built for the youngster. “A true Hollywood story,” jokes Rosman. “Who would have thought we’d have to make false teeth for a six-year-old?”
False teeth or no, the young Wallace became a devoted surrogate little sister to her on-screen sibling, Duff, as well as her stand-in mom, Locklear. “They’re both so cool,” says Aria. “Hilary’s the kind of friend you can tell your secrets to…kind of your real sister, only here, we’re sisters in heart. And Heather…well, she’s just awesome!”
Not so awesome is Locklear’s on-screen persona, Jean Hamilton. While caring and devoted to her daughters, she has a somewhat cockeyed view about life’s little failures: when the going gets though, the family gets going…from one city to another, trying to outrun her continuing romantic mishaps. Jean believes in the restorative powers of a fresh start, continually hoping that this time, her choices will be better. What she may not stop to realize is how the choice of rootlessness is affecting her eldest daughter.
So Holly’s idea to conjure an ideal mate for Jean is motivated by more than just love for her mother-she herself is looking for a chance to “settle down,” finish more than a year of classes at the same school and build lasting relationships with a circle of close, real friends. But that will come-first on Holly’s list is to find Mr. Right-For-My-Mom.
Chris Noth’s indelible role as Mr. Big (Carrie’s elusive, on-again, off-again love interest) on the phenomenally popular HBO series Sex and the City rendered him watercooler conversation for legions of female fans. His red-light/green-light handling of the show’s heroine seemed to divide the Sex fan base into two camps: Big Fans and Big Haters. But for producer Platt, Noth is “charming, intelligent, and erudite,” says the producer. “He exudes the kind of warmth and sensitivity towards women that makes him the perfect man to play, well, the perfect man.”
Holly’s scheme doesn’t involve actually hooking her mom and her friend’s Uncle Ben up-Ben’s seeming unavailability would preclude a real romance. So she does what any blog-writing, internet-savvy, creative teen would do-she absconds with his persona and fashions a real world (orchids and love letters) and cyberspace (emails and instant messaging) courtship between Jean and “Ben,” a restaurant owner (which he actually is), sadly currently out of the country, opening a new eatery in China (a convenient lie).
Noth’s charm worked its magic on the cast of the film, but it was not a one-way street-he loved working with Duff, with whom he shares a majority of his scenes. “She’s a ball of fire. I think she’s a great role model for kids her age; she’s got great energy and she’s completely unpretentious. With all the success she has, she remains fun, spontaneous, full of zest and optimism,” offers Noth.
But while Holly does take some poetic licenses with “Ben” and his life, for the most part, he is based on Uncle Ben, who himself possesses some admirable qualities for a secret admirer: he’s a sensitive, caring guy who owns a restaurant, the popular local River Cafe; he likes to cook; he does The New York Times crossword…in pen; and seems to possess an uncanny knowledge of just what women want. (Because of the nature of the storyline, it was somewhat of an irony that Noth and Locklear, the two intendeds in the romance, actually shot only one scene together. After filming the scene, Locklear joked with Noth, saying, “You may be the perfect man, but I guess I’ll never really know for sure!”)
The idea of Ben’s creation (and somewhat haphazard construction-a restaurant in China!) is a hurried product, sped by the encroaching, possible romance between Jean and a baker at her new place of employment, a Brooklyn deli-the arguably lovable goof Lenny Horton, played by Mike O’Malley. Lenny, hopelessly stuck in the `80s and possessing the wooing aplomb of a teenage boy, pursues Jean with the perseverance of a puppy dog; in the wrong hands, his chasing after Jean could almost resemble stalking…but in that romantic comedy, harmless kind of way.
“If we had written this character with anyone in mind, it would have been Mike,” says producer Platt. “He just embodies the fun and spirit of Lenny. He’s hilarious, but he’s charming and very endearing. And in the film, you find yourself liking him very much, even though you know he’s not the perfect guy for Jean.
Rosman agrees, adding, “Mike brought a warmth and a lovability to his character that would make audiences really understand how a woman like Jean could even consider a guy like that.”
O’Malley defends his on-screen character when he says, “There is a charm to Lenny that makes you not want to write him off so easily.” In one scene, when a lovestruck Lenny is trying to win over Jean with a serenade, O’Malley took the sincere route in the playing of it. “I think the sincerity in his approach is the bit of charm that Jean locks onto. That makes it somewhat understandable that she could ever be interested in a guy like Lenny…rather than just writing him off from the very beginning as some fool.”
For both Noth and O’Malley, being hired to woo Heather Locklear appealed to the performers as one of the most pleasant acting experiences they could find. “She’s a delight,” enthuses Noth. O’Malley found her to be “as sweet as the proverbial `girl next door’…but then, again if `girls next door’ really looked like Heather Locklear, people would never leave their hometowns.”
Holly’s cohort in the Ben conspiracy is her new best friend, Amy, played with a no-nonsense Brooklyn charm by Vanessa Lengies (of television’s American Dreams), who kindly, though not always willingly, supplies her uncle as the model for Jean’s imaginary suitor.
At first, Holly is certain that the bread-baking Lenny is a speedy write-off for Jean. But when he ratchets up his pursuit by crawling on the windowsill, singing an old Styx song and asking her to marry him, Holly, too, must increase her efforts and “up” Ben’s presence to keep Jean off-balance, distracting her from succumbing to Lenny’s persistence, his attentiveness and his questionable charms. So Holly turns to her artistic guy pal, Adam Forrest (played by Living With Fran’s Ben Feldman), who gets increasingly drawn into the ruse when Holly calls upon him to impersonate Ben through instant messaging and then on the phone.
Mimicking their characters’ relationship, Hilary and Vanessa Lengies quickly bonded and became offscreen friends as well. Says Hilary, “I just love talking with her and goofing off with her. She’s the real deal-a really good person, a nice person. And I know our friendship will last well beyond filming.”
Director Rosman became a fan of Lengies from her work in the popular series American Dreams, and he was very pleased that The Perfect Man provided the opportunity to work with the young actress. He supplies, “Vanessa is instantly likeable, and the fact that she and Hilary became such good friends has certainly added to their on-screen chemistry.”
Though many of the life lessons in The Perfect Man come for the eldest Hamilton, Jean, one key opportunity for growth presents itself to Holly. While the teenager becomes increasingly busy with maintaining the relationship between her mom and her mom’s not-so-secret admirer, she at first fails to notice when an admirer appears in her own life-her co-conspirator, Adam. Once Adam’s feelings are known, Holly is hesitant to reciprocate and is afraid to risk feeling for someone…especially given her family’s history with frequent relocation. Why invest in a situation you know has no chance of lasting?
Filmmakers were taken with Feldman’s talents and thought of his character, Adam, in some ways as the perfect man (well, teenage guy) for Holly. Platt explains, “Adam is a charming, artistic kind of kid. He’s funny and self-deprecating. And he’s amused by Holly’s antics and her seemingly outward desire not to get too involved. Adam has a way of piercing that, and getting straight to her heart. Their story, in some ways, mirrors Jean’s. Do you run when things turn out to be not so perfect, or do you stay, invest, and try and work it out? It becomes not only Jean who learns a big life lesson, but Holly as well.
“Ben comes from a theatrical background,” adds Rosman, “and he has a tempo and style that contrast nicely to Hilary. They play well off each other and their relationship as Holly and Adam is very sweet. How could you not root for Adam as he starts to fall in love with her?”
Their acting rapport and on-set friendship helped the two young actors when it came time to shoot a pivotal scene in the budding Holly/Adam relationship…the “big, giant kiss scene,” as Feldman refers to it.
He continues, “Working with Hilary was great. It sounds like I’m supposed to say this stuff, but it’s true-she’s a lot of fun, nice and sweet, and really easy to get along with. Oh, and did I mention she’s cute? When it came time to film the scene, it really helped that we had a friendship and a rapport, because otherwise it’s just really awkward. I mean, filming a scene like that is not as glamorous as it looks when you’ve got like, 80 million people watching you!” (Duff’s real-life mother also helped Feldman on-set by “yelling at me and making faces every time I kissed her daughter. It was all a big laugh.”)
Other cast members added plenty of laughs during the eight weeks of principal photography, both in and out of character. Comedienne and actress Caroline Rhea plays opposite Locklear as her somewhat envious and ever buoyant deli bakery co-worker, Gloria. Television personality, style guru and member of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s fashionista team, Carson Kressley, appears as Lance, the quick-witted bartender at Ben’s local and very real restaurant. And Kym Whitley adds a wry touch as Jean’s employer and friend, Dolores.
While The Perfect Man is brimming with budding, hopeful romance, the project’s cast differed in their opinions of what they considered to be the qualities that makes a romantic prospect “perfect.” Hilary claims she can’t really define what she thinks makes “the perfect man,” but it’s important that he be someone who “makes me laugh a lot, who’s fun, but can also be serious. And since I’m from Texas, I was raised to think that manners and respect are really important as well.”
As for Locklear, she argues that while she has found a good man (husband rock guitarist Richie Sambora), they are indeed hard to find…so a perfect man probably doesn’t exist. “Besides, who would want one?,” adds the actress with a grin.
Feldman swears if he knew what qualities make up the perfect man, he’d “spend every day trying to be that.” He thinks it’s important to be “funny and sensitive and caring. But, really, everyone has their own perfect person…it’s different for everyone, and I think that’s what this movie is about.”
Almost in keeping with his character, Noth offers a thoughtful, different perspective: “We’re all looking for perfection, even if we deny that it exists. We all need the illusion that everything is going to end happily ever after. But I would have to say that most probably, there is no such thing as the perfect man.”
“What’s great about romance,” closes Marc Platt, “is that it’s different for each person. But, for whatever reason, the match is combustible and magical and charming. And if it were that easy, I don’t think there’d be so many wonderful stories and films about trying to find that perfect match…and then falling in love, whether there’s perfection there or not.”
The Perfect Man (2005)
Directed by: Mark Rosman
Starring: Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear, Aria Wallace, Chris Noth, Carson Kressley, Vanessa Lengies, Ben Feldman, Caroline Rhea, Kym Whitley, Michelle Nolden, Maggie Castle
Screenplay by: Michael McQuown, Heather Robinson, Katie Torpey
Production Design by: Jasna Stefanovic
Cinematography by: John R. Leonetti
Film Editing by: Cara Silverman
Costume Design by: Catherine Ashton, Marie-Sylvie Deveau
Set Decoration by: Carolyn ‘Cal’ Loucks
Art Direction by: Anastasia Masaro
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: PG for some mildly suggestive content.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 17, 2005
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