Product Description

A reporter, Lanie Kerrigan (Jolie), interviews a psychic homeless man (Shalhoub) for a fluff piece about a football game's score. Instead, he tells her that her life has no meaning, and is going to end in just a few days, which sparks her to action, trying to change the pattern of her life...

Product Details

• #36954 in VHS
• Released on: 2003-01-14
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com
Angelina Jolie proves her box-office versatility in Life or Something Like It, a romantic comedy (Jolie's first) that succeeds on the strength of Jolie's appealing performance. As Seattle TV news reporter Lanie Kerrigan, Jolie craves celebrity (i.e., she's insecure and seeks approval), but her disapproving cameraman (Edward Burns) detects an admirable woman beneath Lanie's bleached-blond coif and pancake makeup. When a homeless street prophet (Tony Shalhoub) predicts that Lanie will soon be dead, she gradually juggles her priorities, connecting with Burns, appearing drunk on camera (a mistake that ultimately works in her favor), and finding new confidence in her professional and romantic potential. It's generic fluff, but director Stephen Herek (Rock Star, Mr. Holland's Opus) approaches the material with his reliably good-natured sincerity, and Jolie's bubbly charm mixes well with Burns's casual sensibility. And while Herek can't compare to George Cukor or Billy Wilder, he knows just how to handle the inevitable loopholes in the prophet's not-so-gloomy premonition. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Not much like it, actually. Angelina Jolie, her hair in a dreadful blond bouffant, is the smart but shallow Lanie Kerigan, a Seattle local-news TV reporter who wants to go network. Her life begins to fall apart when a street bum who makes prophecies (Tony Shalhoub) says she will die in a week. She is forced to encounter what's authentic in this world, which turns out to be Edward Burns, unshaven, as a cameraman with a devil-may-care attitude. Will she be saved from the unspeakable crime of careerism and learn to enjoy life? Written by John Scott Shepherd and directed by Stephen Herek. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker