Life Or Something Like It (2002)

Hearing you have only days to live can be the push you need to finally start living. Stephen Herek's romantic comedy "Life or Something Like It," Angelina Jolie's first foray into the genre, shows off her range and succeeds largely on the strength of her appealing performance. She plays Lanie Kerrigan, a Seattle TV news reporter hungry for fame, a sign of deep-seated insecurity, who is engaged to a star baseball player (Christian Kane) and on the verge of landing a national anchor job. Her skeptical cameraman, Pete (Edward Burns), sees through her bleached-blond hair and heavy makeup to the admirable woman underneath. When a homeless street prophet (Tony Shalhoub) predicts, with eerie accuracy about everything else, that Lanie will die next Thursday, she starts reshuffling her priorities, reconnecting with Pete, making a spectacle of herself on live TV while leading striking workers in a Rolling Stones singalong, a gaffe that ultimately works in her favor, and discovering new confidence in her career and her love life. Stockard Channing co-stars as a legendary network interviewer. It's generic fluff, but Herek ("Mr. Holland's Opus," "Rock Star") brings his usual good-natured sincerity, and Jolie's bubbly charm blends nicely with Burns' laid-back style. He's no George Cukor or Billy Wilder, but he knows exactly how to handle the loopholes in the prophet's not-so-grim prediction.