Sarah Noland (Diane Lane), a preschool teacher, is still in a state of shock over her husband walking out on her for a younger woman. It's been eight months, but she's still hesitant to join the dating game. Her large family decides to intervene. Sarah's widowed father, Bill (Christopher Plummer), assures her that she is very special and is sure to find a soulmate. Her brother and youngest sister (Ali Hillis) recommend single men they know. Her sister Carol (Elizabeth Perkins) decides to jump-start the whole process by submitting Sarah's profile to PerfectMatch.com, an Internet dating service, attaching her high school graduation photo. The profile reads: "Voluptuous, sensuous, alluring and fun. DWF seeks special man to share starlit nights. Must love dogs." This attracts a menagerie of neurotics and losers including a middle-ager who wants a younger woman, a weeper, an arm wrestler, and a fellow who brings along his fourteen-year old daughter.
Also recently forced back into the dating game is boat builder Jake Anderson (John Cusack), a very intense young man whose wife has left him. His favorite film is Dr. Zhivago because it mirrors his yearning for a passionate love relationship. His best friend Charlie (Ben Shenkman), a lawyer, wants him to loosen up and get laid. He arranges a date for Jake with Sarah. They are to meet at the dog park. Jake takes along his neighbor's terrier in order to fill the requirement of "must love dogs."
The first encounter between these two does not go well: he is trying too hard to be clever, and she is too defensive. Sarah's life is further complicated when she develops a crush on Bob Connor (Dermot Mulroney), a handsome single father of one of her students.
Meanwhile, her father is dating again too. He meets Dolly (Stockard Channing) via the Internet. She is a lively woman who loves to create a diverse set of personalities for her Web profiles to tap into male fantasies. It doesn't seem to bother her that dating is now riddled with the same dishonesty as advertising: false and exaggerated claims are made to beat the competition. At one point, Sarah comes to Dolly's aid when a 14-year-old she has been flirting with online shows up in person to woo her. Even after shooing him away, Dolly is unable to reveal her true age.
Gary David Goldberg (Dad) has written and directed this perky comedy, which is based on a novel by Claire Cook. Although Must Love Dogs has some patches where it spends far too much time on subsidiary characters, John Cusack centers this romantic tale with his rounded and sympathetic portrait of a good man with wit and a big heart. Diane Lane manages to catch the vulnerability of a woman who doubts herself and is afraid of being hurt again. The two of them are very funny in a scene where they desperately try to locate a drugstore to buy condoms. Lane, who hasn't done much comedy, proves she can handle the genre, but Cusack is an absolute master of comic timing.
The best moment in the movie, though, belongs to Christopher Plummer. At a family picnic, he recites a love poem, "Brown Penny" by William Butler Yeats. The measured beauty and profundity of the verse makes all the frantic scurrying and deceit of the dating services seem like so much wasted energy. Hats off also to Elizabeth Perkins for her lively and engaging performance as a meddling sister who has nothing but the best intentions as she tries to help Sarah find happiness in an intimate relationship.
