Never surprises or engages.
A lot of things go into maintaining a strong relationship with the person you love – everything from being affectionate to considerate is critical to making the bond last. One especially important thing is the ability to properly communicate, and that seems to be something the characters in The Perfect Guy don’t understand.
Leah (Sanaa Lathan) has been in a relationship with Dave (Morris Chestnut) for two years. They’re in love and Leah wants the relationship to move forward. She’s tired of dating; she wants to get married and have kids. Dave, however, is skeptical because when people close to him get married, they end up hating one another, and he doesn’t want to hate the woman he loves. So, instead of putting off the debate for another day and seeing if they can make the other person better understand their perspective, Leah bluntly suggests they break up. Despite being in love – again, for two years – Dave agrees, and the two don’t talk for several months.
Sure, they’ve obviously talked about this topic before, but it’s a pretty blunt end to their romance. Unfortunately for Leah, she begins dating Carter (Michael Ealy) while she’s single. Carter seems to be the *ahem* perfect guy at first, but it’s soon revealed that he has seemingly uncontrollable jealousy problems. After lashing out and beating a guy for simply talking to Leah, Leah starts to avoid the man she thought she was beginning to love. Except avoiding Carter isn’t the easiest thing around since he’s tech savvy, clever, and a thoroughly determined stalker.
If you think you see where this movie is going, you’re probably right. That’s because the biggest issue The Perfect Guy has is its very standard script. Everything here feels seriously familiar and unfortunately, it never handles its material in a compelling or exciting way, either. When it’s focused on being a romantic story, it’s just not emotional. It’s quickly jumping forward as one relationship ends, and another begins to blossom.
Everything from Carter meeting Leah’s friends to winning over her parents is quickly packed into the first 30 minutes or so – which is also full of music that sounds like it’s straight out of a fairy tale, by the way. Maybe if the handling of this romance was legitimately moving, the music would feel fitting. Instead, you can tell these characters are just going through the motions before it’s revealed that Carter isn’t Prince Charming. The actors do a fine job, but the material they’re given just doesn’t get you emotionally connected and it’s a pretty generic and predictable course of events.
Sadly, the thrills don’t deliver, either. There’s so many cliches in here – yes, she even slowly walks around in a poorly lit parking garage at one point. Developments are blatantly telegraphed way in advance, too. If you watch movies on a somewhat regular basis, it’s pretty tough to believe you’ll be shocked at any point in The Perfect Guy. At one point they completely give away how it’ll end. The fact there’s some awkward time jumps between scenes doesn’t help the movie, either.
A movie like this has the chance to really entertain by occasionally embracing its silliness – The Boy Next Door certainly did at times – but that never happens with this one. It plays the romance and horror with a straight face, and both elements never properly pull you into the story or surprise you.
This movie had the chance to stand apart from the crowd by shining a spotlight on mental health issues or relatable problems people face (e.g. one person wants more than the other does), but it instead feels like “cliche thriller #105.” But hey, at least there appears to be an Almost Human reference, so there’s that. (Someone calls Carter a robot. Sure, it’s probably just a coincidence, but the movie is a little more enjoyable when you think it’s a nod to that short-lived show.)
The Perfect Guy is a romantic thriller where you just don’t end up caring all that much about the characters. Their paths never divert from the expected; their developments are rushed, and you’re never legitimately scared (there’s maybe one decent jump scare in there and the rest of the moments you can see coming well in advance). The acting, especially from Ealy, does make up a little bit for the formulaic story, though.
