02/14/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Fools Rush In
Chemistry makes 'Fools' a pleasant surprise

***1/2 (out of five)
Starring Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek, Jon Tenney, Jill Clayburgh, Siobhan Fallon, Carlos Gomez, John Bennett Perry. A Columbia picture written by Katherine Reback, directed by Andy Tennant. Rated PG-13, contains adult themes, profanity. Running time: 106 minutes.

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

If you're going to do the old story of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl . . . well, you know the rest . . . it's best to hire actors who have strong chemistry and a lot of charisma to pull it off.

Fortunately, the bubbly romantic comedy Fools Rush In has Matthew Perry of TV's Friends and the beautiful Salma Hayek.

Perry plays a WASPily conservative young man who marries the outgoing Mexican girl of his dreams after she turns up three-months pregnant on his doorstep after a one-night fling.

He's hot-shot New York designer Alex Whit. He's hot-shot New York designer Alex Whitman, who's creating a restaurant extravaganza in Las Vegas. She's photographer Isabel Fuentes, who has a big, friendly family, a strong dedication to her Catholic faith and a belief in fate.

She follows her sense of destiny to arrive at his house with that huge surprise. After a little prodding, he realizes his destiny, too. She takes him to meet her family that very night. Hours later, there's a Vegas wedding chapel with a fake Elvis as the best man.

This clash-of-cultures comedy is breezy and funny and pretty much what you'd expect. His job, which is pulling him back to New York and away from her family and the desert that she loves, creates the divisive chasm that threatens their marriage. There are lies on both sides. A separation. You can guess the rest.

But it's handled sweetly and breezily by the cast and director Andy Tennant. The results are cute and buoyant, thanks to the fizz between Perry and Hayek. Even lines such as, "You're the one I never knew I wanted," don't get stuck in their throats.

Clearly, Alex has a lot of growing up to do. When his mother and father (Jill Clayburgh and Perry's real-life father, John Bennett Perry) arrive in an awkwardly funny sequence, he pretends at first that Isabel is the maid. Later, he doesn't tell her that he's planning a move back to New York while she has come to believe that they'd stay in Vegas for the baby's birth.

Will all this be straightened out? Want to place odds?

But there's so much charm and good will here that Fools Rush In is certainly the date-night picture of the weekend . . . and just in time for Valentine's Day.