Taglines: Is it love… or are they just imagining things?
Alex is an author whose writer’s block and gambling debts have landed him in a jam. In order get loan sharks off his back, he must finish his novel in 30 days or wind up dead. To help him complete his manuscript he hires stenographer Emma. As Alex begins to dictate his tale of a romantic love triangle to the charming yet somewhat opinionated stenographer, Emma challenges his ideas at every turn. Her unsolicited yet intriguing input begins to inadvertently influence Alex and his story and soon real life begins to imitate art.
Alex & Emma is an American romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner and starring Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson. Written by Jeremy Leven, the film is about a writer who must turn out a novel in thirty days or face the wrath of loan sharks.
Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson) finds himself in a tricky situation. Locked in his creative process, he is entrapped in a disastrous economic situation: he is ruined, and he must repay a US$100,000 debt to the Cuban mafia. He is given a 30-days ultimatum to repay the money he owes them or they will kill him. And the only solution to this big problem is to finish his novel. Or rather, to start it, since he has not written one single line. But he has an idea for the story: A comedy about “the powerlessness of being in love, how love devours the insides of a person like a deadly virus.”
But what happens is that he does not get put in writing. That’s why he decides to hire the services of Emma Dinsmore (Kate Hudson), a stubborn stenographer, just for her help to finish the novel, so he can receive money from the publisher in order to pay his debts. So finally comes the novel: It tells the story of Adam Shipley (Luke Wilson ), a writer who has been hired to tutor the children of an attractive French woman (Sophie Marceau), who is going through bad economic times, and to whom Adam falls in love, despite the failed tempts of the au pair.
As Alex dictates his novel to Emma, the movie cuts away to scenes from the novel, where Adam (Wilson) interacts with a series of nannies (all played by Hudson), and falls for the last one. But on the other hand, Emma begins to question the ideas of Alex Sheldon, while starting to affect his life as well as his work. They soon fall for each other.
Alas, after finishing the book, Emma discovers that the French woman of the history was based on a real person, a former girlfriend of Alex who just broke up with her latest boyfriend and now eats with Alex in a bar to invite him to a dance. Alex soon realizes that the person he really wants to be with is Emma. After much prodding, he gets to meet with her to write the end of the book in which Alex has changed and shows Emma he wants her to be an important part of his life.
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Starring: Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson, Sophie Marceau, Lobo Sebastian, Derek Barbosa, Robert Costanzo, Gigi Bermingham
Screenplay by: Jeremy Leven
Production Design by: John Larena
Cinematography by: Gavin Finney
Film Editing by: Alan Edward Bell, Robert Leighton
Costume Design by: Shay Cunliffe
Set Decoration by: Andi Brittan
Music by: Marc Shaiman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and some language.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: June 20, 2003
