Jack (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) lives by the "C" rule. Having a terrific job as an ad-man in Manhattan, he believes the right CAREER, the right CAR, the right CLOTHES, and yes, even the right COFFEE, makes Jack a bright boy. Therefore, our Jack is in for a head-turn when he meets pretty, bohemian Jill (Taryn Manning) on a busy street. She asks him for directions, pulling out a map, but Jack points out that the guide she has is for the subway alone. Laughing together briefly, Jack seizes the moment to ask Jill to star in a minor television commercial THAT DAY and whisks her off for a shoot. Later, he gives her a ride home to a youth hostel, as she is newly arrived in town and doesn't have a permanent place. But, Jack drives a mere half block up the street before heading back. Telling Jill that he has an extra bedroom in his plush apartment, he asks if she would like to stay with him until she finds the right digs for her. Well, of course she would! It isn't long before Jill is crowding his refrigerator with healthy vegetable dishes and telling him she will only drink "fair world" coffee. Not only that, the relationship soon turns intimate, although Jack tries to establish more restrictive boundaries. Further complications arise when Jill appears to have some health secrets, for she eats constantly, despite being thin, and has a wicked cough from time to time. Even so, Jill leads Jack into some fun activities, like tree climbing, and makes him realize that the ad business, like Jack's existence, lacks depth and meaning. What does the future hold for Jack and Jill? This is one of the best romantic dramas I've seen all year. Oddly similar to Sweet November, it nevertheless can stand well on its own merits. Prinze and Manning give lovely, touching performances that shine brightly while the other cast members do nice work, too. Costumes, settings, camera work and a deft, lively direction are also assets. Best of all, the story uses plenty of humor and drama to illuminate the aspects of a serious disease, cystic fibrosis. If you are a fan of Prinze or romantic drama, make time for this one. Go up even a steep hill, if need be, to fetch this very fine flick.

I'm usually not a stickler for continuity errors or anachronisms in a film. Making a motion picture is a very complicated beast and you can't get all that upset if a few minor mistakes creep in. A line has to be drawn somewhere, however, and I have to draw it right down the middle of Jack and Jill vs. The World. The character played by Freddie Prinze Jr. has a fairly large shoulder tattoo and throughout the movie it moves from the left shoulder to his right, to his left, to his right, to his left, to his right and finally back to his left. That's pretty egregious but it's not why I'm pointing it out.

The tattoo is at least 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide, not the sort of thing anyone gets as a lark. Yet there's no explanation ever given for it and it doesn't in any way fit the character Prinze Jr. is playing. If the tattoo had served some purpose in the story, somebody probably would have noticed that it kept switching from one shoulder to the other. But it was just some random detail inserted into the script for no particular reason, which is how I'd describe a lot of things in this film. Jack and Jill vs. The World is littered with random details and excess scenes that aren't even tangentially connected to the story being told.

Jack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a successful young ad man in New York City. He meets a bohemian aspiring actress named Jill (Taryn Manning) and instantly invites her to move in with him. You'd think it would be because he would want to bang her, but that would require the screenplay to treat Jack like a real human being. Instead, he does it out of the platonic goodness of his heart, until Jill finally throws herself at him. They then proceed to hang out more like college roommates who occasionally boink instead of boyfriend and girlfriend, only to eventually break up over a secret that Jill keeps from Jack long after any decent person would have told him. Jack responds to that like a complete dick but they get back together because…well, I think it's legally required under federal statute that every feeble attempt at romantic comedy finishes with the two stars back in each other's arms.

While Jack and Jill are doing their whole thing, Jack also spends an inordinate amount of screen time at work with his ad writing partner George (Peter Stebbings). Now, it's standard for the male lead in a rom com to have a best friend and it's not unusual for those two guys to have a lot of scenes together, but this movie takes the cake. There is so much more interaction between Jack and George than Jack and Jill that it would have made perfect sense for the story to end with the two guys admitting their gay love for each other and running away to Fire Island. And of course, Jill also has a zany best friend of her own in Lucy (Vanessa Parise). Jill and Lucy have far fewer scenes together than Jack and George, which is also weirdly standard for rom coms, but Lucy does have two scenes that are entirely about her character, something George never has.

If Peter Stebbings and Vanessa Parise hadn't written this script and Parise hadn't directed this movie, the roles of George and Lucy would have been greatly reduced or possibly eliminated. Neither of them ultimately contributes a damn thing to the story except as plot devices. Maybe the time spent on them could have been used to develop the relationship between Jack and his father (Robert Forster),rather than having it reduced to three scenes that only make sense if you realize they're trying to do the exact same father-son garbage you've seen in umpteen other films.

And I can't forget about the alarm clock. Jack lives in an apartment with otherwise modern, moderately stylish furnishings. But in his bedroom is an alarm clock straight out of the 1970s with the numbers that flip over like an old scoreboard. The clock is also patched together with a bunch of duct tape. Am I wrong, or does it sound like Jack having such an incongruous appliance should have some sort of significance? Where did it come from? Why does he still have it? That sort of thing. You won't be surprised to learn there's no explanation or reason given for the clock, even though it's prominently featured several times. I suppose the whole clock back story could have been edited out, but this film is barely 90 minutes long. Another 2 or 3 minutes couldn't have been added so that at least one frickin' detail wouldn't have been so random?

Jack and Jill vs. The World is a flabby, unfocused mess with a fundamental premise so clichéd and hoary that it can't carry the extra weight and collapses long before the movie is over. Unless you need to see a Taryn Manning nip slip, skip this thing.

My wife first heard about Jack and Jill Vs. The World through a movie trailer website, and it was one that she couldn't wait to see. However, to me, it looked like a typical, garden variety romantic comedy...the type of movie that I tolerate because my wife tolerates my kind of movies. However, then I heard about the little twist (Manning's character's cystic fibrosis) and thought that was something that could definitely add a unique element to an otherwise formulaic plot. Well, the movie never came to our city, and I had forgotten all about it. Then the other day, my wife called me from Blockbuster to tell me the "wonderful" news: it was now on DVD. So she rented it, brought it home, and we just got done watching it. First the positive. The acting was pretty decent, and the movie definitely had a few shining moments. One of those included Robert Forster's character and Prinze's character sharing a touching father/son moment. Indeed, Forster was one of the best things about this film. The only problem is that you only hear him most of the time through narration. Finally, the movie did have that one unique element that added some drama, without ever becoming over the top or manipulative. Now the negative. And it's a big one. It is what many people would consider to be the most important component to a movie: The screenplay. I mean, let's be honest, usually a movie will be whatever it's screenplay is. In other words, if a screenplay is good, the movie will probably be good, and vice versa. And the screenplay here is lacking. The dialogue is never really believable, and so the characters are never really believable, and thus there never is an emotional connection made. That's a big problem, especially in a movie where the characters need to be cared about. I never really cared, because they never seemed real. I get the feeling here that this script was a rough draft, and for some reason, no one wanted to take the time to polish it up. That's disappointing. Because this is a movie that had some promise, but because of the screenplay, never had a chance to live up to what it could have been.