Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear and Chris Noth star in this hilarious yet heartwarming comedy about mothers, daughters and the outrageous lengths people will go to for love. Holly Hamilton (Duff) is on a mission to find her single mom (Locklear) a perfect man. Even if she has to make that man up! Without other options, she creates an imaginary secret admirer based on a charming restaurateur (Noth). But this scheme keeps Holly on her toes more than it actually sweeps her mother off her feet. One crazy mishap after another leads the two of them to discover that sometimes what you're looking for is already right in front of you.
2.
One of Hilary Duff's most attractive qualities is that she's not a borderline anorexic like too many Hollywood starlets; she has a warm, full-bodied presence that makes her dangerously glossy prettiness accessible. Similarly, Heather Locklear--who's been an iconic plastic blonde on television for decades--is cultivating a bruised humanity as she matures. These two combine forces in The Perfect Man, a curious teen comedy/adult romance hybrid about a single mother named Jean (Locklear, Melrose Place) whose tactic for getting over a broken heart is to move to a different part of the country, uprooting her two daughters Holly and Zoe (Duff, Cheaper by the Dozen, and newcomer Aria Wallace) in the process. Holly, to keep her mother from falling into another desperate and doomed relationship, uses advice from a schoolfriend's uncle (Chris Noth, Sex and the City) to send Jean flowers and love letters from a secret admirer. Of course, sustaining this fantasy requires some wacky antics, but The Perfect Man balances goofiness with an emotional mother/daughter tug-of-war and has some entertaining supporting actors (including Caroline Rhea, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Carson Kressley, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). The plot, however, has holes so big that it collapses even as it unfolds. --Bret Fetzer
3.
In The Perfect Man, teenager Holly Hamilton (Hilary Duff) is tired of moving every time her single mom Jean (Heather Locklear) has another personal meltdown involving yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man...an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her shaky self-esteem. When the virtual relationship takes off, Holly finds herself having to produce the suitor, borrowing her friend's charming and handsome Uncle Ben (Chris Noth) as the face behind the e-mails, notes and gifts. Holly must resort to increasingly desperate measures to keep the ruse alive and protect her mom's newfound happiness. . . almost missing the real perfect man when he does come along.
The Perfect Man stars Hilary Duff (The Lizzie McGuire Movie), Heather Locklear (Uptown Girls), Chris Noth (television's Sex and the City), Mike O'Malley (28 Days), Ben Feldman (When Do We Eat?), Vanessa Lengies (television's American Dreams) and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Carson Kressley. The screenplay is written by Gina Wendkos (The Princess Diaries), based on a story by Michael McQuown & Heather Robinson & Katherine Torpey; the film is produced by Marc Platt (Legally Blonde), Dawn Wolfrom (Never Again) and Susan Duff (A Cinderella Story), and executive-produced by Billy Higgins (Honey).
4.
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.
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