(1992) Love Potion No. 9

I almost can’t believe I spent my “You can’t She’s All That Sandra Bullock” argument on Miss Congeniality. YOU 👏 CAN’T 👏 SHE’S-ALL-THAT 👏 SANDRA 👏 BULLOCK. See, I was even nice enough to omit a couple of claps and used hyphens instead.

But, I’m gonna steal the next sentence from the Miss Congeniality review: This movie was built around a ridiculous premise that, somehow, nobody finds Sandra Bullock attractive because she’s a bit of a nerd. Yup, she’s not a tomboy, she’s a nerd. Big whoop.

I will admit, this movie ground multiple of my gears. The main character is just not likeable. He visits fortune tellers, he takes weird potions from them. I don’t care if they work or not, he should know better. But let’s skip to the plot.

Story

So, there’s this guy named Paul and he’s awful with women. Instead of joining the club, he visits old Gipsy ladies and annoys any non-gipsy ladies. Harasses would be too strong of a word, because he’s just an annoying wimp.

But! He gets lucky and this Madame Ruth lady gives him the potion #8. Yes, you read that right, EIGHT. It makes anyone in your vicinity fall in love with you. Instantly. So, being a huge scientist, he throws it in the trash. Only after his cat conducts a proper experiment, he gives it a go and shares it with his amazing lab partner, Sandra Diane Bullock.

Diane is not an idiot, so she immediately tests the stuff on monkeys and, sure enough, it works if your victim hears you after taking it, and it lasts for four hours. So they decide not to use it on each other, and to experiment on other people instead. Like any sensible scientists would do!

The problem here is that this Paul dude is not sensible. He’s a Patrick Bateman type with a nice stereo, and uses his potion to take advantage of as many women as he can. He turns annoying into harassing in a single bound. This is presented in a nice montage, so all is forgiven. Even Rocky had a montage! Except his wasn’t about making women sleep with you.

So, after a while, our Paul hero realizes he actually likes Diane, and she kinda likes him, so they start dating. She is now gorgeous, of course. There’s a new haircut, and contacts, and the gap between teeth completely fixed, and her unibrows now being divorced.

She IS all that. She even dumps the prince of England for Paul. Yup, while he was having his funs around sorority houses, she started dating just the one guy. WHOLESOME!

BUT THEN, a plot twist. Diane ghosts him, and he eventually finds out that her 10-years-ongoing-booty-call-exploiter-fella bought an entire bottle of potion #8 and is using it to control her.

He even got her a mobile phone (but not an iPhone, it’s like 1992, you zoomers) so that he can call her every four hours.

I went from feeling I’d be in love with Diane forever to wondering if I’d ever fall in love with anyone again. - Paul Bateman

Paul, being hurt by this twist, and realizing his D.E.N.N.I.S system is not going the right way, visits the Gypsy lady again, and learns his lesson.

Just kidding, he gets a new potion, POTION NUMBER NINE. This one purifies emotions and makes them last forever. So, if a certain person liked you for real, THEY WILL LIKE YOU FOREVER. And if they didn’t, THEY WILL HATE YOU FOREVER. Nothing shady about that, just normal human stuff! We are known to feel the same forever.

If you both take this potion and you were in love with her, but she really never was in love with you, you will love her for the rest of your life, and she will hate you for the rest of hers. - Madame Gipsy

So he manipulates some more people, gets his way, and Diane now loves him. Forever and ever. Because she apparently loved him for real. Go figure.

I’m sure I skipped over some scenes like Paul getting completely bent over by a prostitute, but that’s totally irrelevant, he’s just an amazing guy.

Good for you, Paul. Serious claps. 👏👏👏

Final Verdict

This movie is not the best 10/10 movie. It’s a lower tier 10/10 movie. There’s a reason why most magic lores have special rules for love.

You don’t manipulate love, it’s just not done. Especially not using magic. (from what I remember, I will probably refer to this movie 6 years later. Hi Nicole!)

Unfortunately, instead of making the main characters fall in love without potions, it introduces an even more potent one as a solution to everything. So, tough luck, it’s a weak 10/10 that almost went lower. Yup, it almost got a 9/9.

Category	Rating
Story	03 / 10
Characters	03 / 10
Sandra Bullock on-screen-time	10 / 10
Using magic to get Sandra	01 / 10
An overall unlikeble main dude	01 / 10
Liking Huey Lews and the News	01 / 10
FINAL RATING	10 / 10