All About Steve

Quiz question – Who or what is a cruciverbalist? Its not a random tongue twister that I am teasing you with on an average Friday. It is someone who makes crosswords for a living. I am serious. Newspapers pay serious monies to the people who make those black and white checkerboards with clues around them that make you go completely insane. So what would a cruciverbalist be like. Someone who is very good with words right? And someone who would be extremely good with information which can be twisted along with words to give you amazingly warped clues. In short someone who in most parlances is referred to as – A NERD. Sigh!!! The story of life. If you know lots of stuff they call u a nerd. If you don’t then they call you daft.

Nevertheless, one such nice looking lady cruciverbalist is Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock). She works for the Sacramento Herald. She wears Red Boots that stand out like a neon sign. And she is nerd personified. She is single and stays with her parents under the pretext that her house is getting fumigated. Despite the best efforts of her parents and friends, she avoids meeting any guys. However, things change when she goes the local school for career day to explain what she does. The kids are first of all surprised to hear that people get paid for doing crossword puzzles. They also mock her when she mentions her residential status and salary. So she changes her mind about the blind date that her parents have set up for her that evening. Hoping to find someone who is reasonable she is elated to find the gorgeous cameraman for CCN Steve (Bradley Cooper).

Now Mary has a problem other than the fact that she is a nerd. She is a really talkative nerd. Talkative enough to drive most people up the wall. More importantly she hasn’t been laid for quite a while now. Once in the confines of his truck / station wagon, her enthusiasm gets the better of her and she is all over Steve – right outside her house if I may add. Now Steve maybe good looking but he is severely taken aback with the enthusiasm. Not to mention the Verbal Diarrhoea. In the immense pressure, he fakes an official emergency and scoots off. However, he does make the cardinal error of telling Mary that he would have loved to take her along with him to Boston but unfortunately Mary has work to attend. Smitten by Steve, Mary spends the whole night making her crossword which turns out to be “All about Steve”. Steve’s eye colour, hair colour, his job, his shirt etc. etc. etc. In short, she gets fired for being unprofessional. But Mary takes this as a sign to hit the road with Steve. En route she meets Elizabeth (Katy Mixon) and Howard (DJ Qualls) who help her in the chase for Steve.

AAS takes a look into 2 broad topics. Firstly the nonsense that the media covers these days and the extent to which anchors are willing to go to “generate” saleable news. The other more important aspect is the search for the answer to the eternal question – what should I look for in my partner? Who is normal? It aptly finishes by asking people “To find your own normal” and not change who you are for anyone. After all if you have to stalk someone then what is the point really? The narration is tight and doesn’t go all over the place. Director Phil Traill has kept the movie short and crisp with nothing that you can call unnecessary or force fitted. Sandra Bullock essay’s the role of the nerdy Mary Horowitz extremely well but her age definitely showed. I am sure there are better makeup artists in Hollywood. Never been a huge fan of Brad Cooper and he doesn’t give me enough reason to change my stance. AAS is definitely an entertaining RomCom. I give it 5 on 10.