If you were to search my collection of movies, you would find that a lot of them are romantic comedies, or at least comedies with some aspect of romance within them. That’s why when I heard about “How do you know?” I knew I had to give it a try.

For the first time on Megan’s Movie Monday, I am presenting to you the review of a movie that is currently in theaters.

“How do you know?” stars Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, and Jack Nicholson. It follows the story of Lisa (Witherspoon) who, after being cut from her softball team, also finds herself in a love triangle with her baseball player and millionaire boyfriend (Owen Wilson) and a businessman going through a stressful time (Rudd).

With two actors that had me laughing out loud in other movies, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd, and the romantic comedy category, I expected better of “How do you know?” I am sad to report that I was sincerely disappointed in this movie.

My first problem is the fact that there was a great deal that was not explained in the movie that needed to be, resulting in a lot of confusion. Some things were explained too late and, call me slow, I felt that these things needed to be explained to make the overall plot more understandable and to make things relate to each other better. Many of the circumstances of the love triangle situation were unclear. I felt like I was expected to know certain details that either were not explained or were explained too late in the movie. Sure, some mysteries are necessary, and keep the viewer watching, but in this movie it came in the form of missing essential details and that just isn’t cool.

Secondly, when a movie is classified as a romantic comedy, I expect to be laughing, maybe some “awww’s” would be coming from my mouth. Unfortunately, the only laughs that came from me were a chuckle here and there, sometimes at awkwardness in the movie itself. This is something I realized at the end of the movie. Although the movie had the romance element, it seemed rushed and unrealistic at times in certain situations, and the comedy element was lacking. That constitutes a major point deduction right there.

Furthermore, there were scenes in the movie that dragged on. I feel that these scenes could have been cut down or in some cases, cut out completely. The movie would have flowed better and progressed at a non-dragging rate.

The acing in this movie wasn’t all bad, and most of the characters were well-played, but not necessarily well-developed.

I hate to say it but overall, this movie was lacking. The story is poorly introduced and far-fetched, the laughs are lacking, and details are missing.

As much as it hurts to do this, on a scale that I completely made up off the top of my head just now, “How do you know?” gets 2 cupcakes out of five. Hey, ya win some, ya lose some.