Last week I had the pleasure of seeing a movie I’d been hearing about for roughly half a decade or so: The Rewrite, starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei. What was the hook that got me to watch this maudlin piece of Hollywood tripe?

It takes place in my hometown.

Yup. Binghamton, New York. And seriously, it’s no incidental mention. Binghamton is a character the way New York is a character in old Woody Allen movies. The movie is about Binghamton. Or rather, it’s about Binghamton, and I have no idea how that plays if you’re not actually from there. I spent nearly 30 years of my life there, and for the most part The Rewrite nails it. Heck, the main plot line is that the protagonist hates that he has to live in Binghamton!

Director Marc Lawrence, who has teamed with Hugh Grant now in four films, is a 1981 graduate of Binghamton University (we called it SUNY back then), and luckily for him Binghamton’s been in a freeze-frame timewarp since then, so the Binghamton he remembers from 1981 is precisely what it looks like today. Well, it might be a little scummier but it’s basically the same.

Serling. Spiedies. Rain. Carousels. It’s all in there. And who knew J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney were going to pop up in the film too? My thought pretty much was: my God, those are real actors in this home movie… wait a minute, this is a real movie.

Predicable at every turn, The Rewrite isn’t going to win any Academy Awards. (Have you ever seen a chick flick before? Yup, you know how it ends.) But the characters, the acting, (some) of the scenery, and, in a starring role, the music make The Rewrite an ultimately enjoyable film, whether you’re from Binghamton or not.

And for your sake I hope you’re not.

Ha! They even get that right too.