Eckhart and Alba Search for the Meaning of Life in Bill

Love. Marriage. Family. Comedy. What happened to happily ever after the day after the fact? Aaron Eckhart's character faced that dilemma in the recently released DVD of Meet Bill. The film followed Eckhart through his journey to rediscovering himself once again with some humorous results.

Bill (Eckhart) had the perfect life. A beautiful wife and a cushiony position at his father-in-law's bank. He seemed to have it all, or was it all a dream? One day, Bill suddenly looked in the mirror and hated what he saw. He lost his individuality and his self confidence. Bill regularly turned to his multiple secret stashes of chocolate. Due to his sugar addiction, his appearance was no longer what it used to be. His wife Jess (Elizabeth Banks) had lost interest in her husband which got Bill to reveal Jess' affair with a local news reporter (Timothy Olyphant). This betrayal was the straw that pushed Bill over the edge. He finally snapped and decided to stop pretending his life was nothing but a mirage.

During Bill's quest for his happy ending, he crossed paths with a mischievous high school student known only as "The Kid" (Logan Lerman) and a lingerie store employee named Lucy (Jessica Alba). Bill used his newfound friends to gather up the strength find a new career and chance with his estranged wife. Unfortunately, Bill was always ignored by his wife and family every time he had a new business proposition. He decided to grab the brass ring on his own and went to extreme measures to secure his dream of running a donut chain store. Towards a pivotal scene in the film, his secret dreams were revealed and the results weren't what Bill expected them to be. Were his dreams achieved or did he fail once again?

Eckhart's Bill was a rather different spin from his earlier roles as the overconfident man with boundary issues. He portrayed Bill as a sad sack individual who lost his way through his less than perfect physical appearance. His perpetual bed head and portly stomach showed Bill was not the man he thought he was. Eckhart excelled best in his scenes with Lerman's unnamed high school student. His manic smile popped out every time Bill got involved in one of the Kid's schemes. Banks' Jess breathed life into her bickering with Eckhart during the film's more comedic scenes. Her character was everything that Alba's character should've been and more. Sadly, Banks' scenes were too limited to have known what direction the film and her character could've went.

The film's weak links involved Alba's anemic character portrayal of the female spoiler was just that. Her part was so limited that the credits over promoted her part in the film. There was a false expectation of Alba's purpose in the film when she first appeared which got quickly dispelled by the end credits. She was repressed window dressing and nothing more. Even though Lerman's scenes with Eckhart made the film interesting, he wasn't given much to do himself. His character's only purpose was to force Bill to get a life. Nothing was ever explained about Lerman's Kid and too many questions were left unanswered.

The story itself seemed to take on too many genres at once. Was it a love story? A buddy comedy? A satire on corporate society? That answer was never determined. The film had some entertaining moments, but it was far from perfect due to an unbalanced script. If the film stuck with a particular genre, the results would've been much funnier.

Bill was a light comedy that served its purpose to entertain for a brief moment and quickly forgettable as soon as it's over. The movie created an entry into Bill's unhappiness and allowed him to slowly climb out of his rabbit hole to the life he wanted. The timing was inopportune to Bill, but his friends showed him that real life was meant to be messy and imperfect. In the end, Bill realized his life was a work in progress no matter how hard he tried. The dream and the reality rolled into an unclear messy ending like the film, and life, intended.