Vancouver. Cass is a sucessful business woman, but is a failure when it comes to finding the right man who wants to marry her. Upon the insisting of her sister, Cass starts to read the self-help book "Dater's Handbook" which suggest she is constantly picking wrong, iresponsible men who don't want to commit. She thus breaks up with her boyfriend, Peter, and decides to go on a date with the relaxed and casual Robert. However, when a manager, George, invites her to diner, she decides to date him simultaneously, as well, in order to see which of the two men will turn out to be the "right one". She drops Robert and chooses George, since he is the opposite of a man she always picked: reliable, conservative, safe, boring. Too boring, however, and thus, in the end, Cass still decides to make up with Robert.
"Dater's Handbook" is remembered for being the last film featuring Meghan Markle, before her retirement from acting as she got married to Prince Harry two years later. It is a rather standard romantic comedy flick, yet it gains 90% of its charm thanks to Markle's sweet, lovable and funny performance, who here probably wanted to display all she got before calling it quits in the movie world, and this works to some extent, since she manages to lift up the level of the rather routine and light storyline by a notch. The story focuses on the theme of trying to rationalize love in the heroine Cass who is attracted to the "wild" and unpredictable Robert, but decides to pick the opposite spectrum and go for the boring and predictable, stable George, hoping she will finally find the opposite man who will commit, and this uncertainty gives the movie some sparks. One of the best jokes arrives in the office, when Cass informs an employee that he goofed when he made a thousand cylindrical football ball snuggies featuring the word "Tornadoes" because he thought it meant American football, when it fact it meant the South American association football, which has a round ball. How does she solve this? She simply tells him to call a high school in Wichita which has a "Tornadoes" team and ask if they need plush toy football balls, in order to sell them the unnecessary stuff. Another good scene is the "stolen moment" of Cass observing her and Robert's dog bringing back a freesbee together, holding it in both of their jaws, which is a nice foreshadowing, as well as the comical moment of Robert trying to play football in order to block Cass from bowling. While the ending is somewhat too neat and the story plays it too safe, "Dater's Handbook" is a cute and amiable little film that has its moments.
Grade:++
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