[6]

Chris Pine stars as a young blind man trying to enter the dating world. His brother (American Pie‘s Eddie Kaye Thomas) steers him in plenty of wrong, comedic directions before Pine realizes he’s attracted to the young Indian receptionist at his doctor’s office. The Indian woman (Anjali Jay) wrestles with her family’s customs and is torn between an impending arranged marriage and an unsanctioned future with Pine.

I only saw this movie because Chris Pine is in it, and he’s probably at his most adorable here. But the romantic comedy aspects of Blind Dating turned out to be completely tolerable. Pine and Anjali’s characters aren’t the typical clueless, empty-headed zombies you find at the center of so many other rom-coms. I was also drawn into the movie by a sub-plot involving an experimental surgery that might restore some of Pine’s character’s eyesight. It didn’t hurt that the subplot involved supporting actors Jane Seymour and Stephen Tobolowsky. (Seymour is also the executive producer on the film.) In the end, Blind Dating was a sweet, genuinely charming fluff ball of a movie — just what I needed at the time.