Though you usually get more in the trailers

As someone who, for the past 22 years, has made his living at least in part by writing film reviews, I am maybe the last person who should be saying this … but, reading film reviews before you see a movie can lead you in the wrong direction.

Take “Rumor Has It,” which I saw yesterday. The romantic comedy stars Jennifer Aniston as a woman who becomes convinced that her life is based on the novel, and then movie, “The Graduate.” I had read at least one review that trashed it, making it sound as if it starred Hilary Duff and featured at least one talking Volkswagen .

But the film is actually quite good. Not great, but well worth seeing. Aniston shows for the first time that she might actually have what it takes to be a movie star. Her co-stars – from Kevin Costner to Shirley MacLaine, Mena Suvari to Mark Ruffalo, not to mention Richard Jenkins – all flesh out their characters, making them more than clichés.

That’s true even of MacLaine who, you remember, is playing the Mrs. Robinson character . So the spot in the trailer where she invites Aniston in and says, “I’ll put on a pot of bourbon,” well, that’s pretty typical of her whole performance.

But it works. Because director Rob Reiner makes her performance blend in with the whole project, using it as just one part in a whole story about love, pain and, most of all, growth. In the end, if the characters haven’t actually changed, they at least show a willingness to do so.

And that’s all you can expect of anyone in real life, much less the movies.

Below: Rob Reiner’s film “Rumor Has It” uses Mike Nichols’ 1967 film “The Graduate” as an interesting plot device.

MGM publicity photo