Head over Heels (2001 film)

Plot

Amanda Pierce (Monica Potter), a New York paintings conservator working at The Met, has very bad judgment in men, which is proven when she walks in on her boyfriend cheating on her with a supermodel. Amanda begins looking for a new apartment and finds one with four struggling models, Jade (Shalom Harlow), Roxana (Ivana Miličević), Candi (Sarah O'Hare), and Holly (Tomiko Fraser).

When Amanda discovers that Jim Winston (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the guy she likes, lives in the apartment across from hers, she starts spying on him to try to find his flaw. One night Amanda sees Jim kill a woman, Megan O'Brien (Tanja Reichert), and by the time the police arrive they don't believe Amanda because she is the only witness, and the evidence is gone.

Annoyed about the police's lack of effort to find out what has really happened, Amanda and her new friends investigate on their own. When Amanda finds out about what she thinks is Jim's involvement with Megan's death, she confronts him. Amanda's judgment turns out to be wrong and Jim, who turns out to be undercover cop, Bob Smoot, who was trying to gain a suspect's trust by staging his partner Megan's death, has his cover blown. Amanda discovers that Jim is investigating Halloran (Jay Brazeau), a Russian man who has been smuggling in money and who Amanda has been privately restoring a painting for.

Later, Jim, Amanda and her roommates get captured, but escape when Roxana seduces their Russian guard, and with the help of the models realize what Halloran was really doing, smuggling diamonds. Amanda, Jim, and the models go to a fashion runway and take down Strukov. They are all awarded special commendations for meritorious service from the FBI.

After the cops take care of things Jim asks Amanda if they can start over, but she refuses and Jim leaves. At the end Amanda and Jim (going by his real name Bob) "meet" again and the movie ends when Bob takes Amanda up to his new apartment and shows her the view, which turns out to be of Amanda and the models' apartment. Lisa and the models are jumping around happily while Bob and Amanda laugh. They kiss and close the curtains to his apartment window.

Cast

Reception

The film premiered on February 2, 2001, and was met with largely negative critical reception. It earned a 10% "Certified Rotten" rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 3.4 out of 10 based on 89 reviews. The consensus on the site described "Head over Heels" as a "huge mess," criticizing its plot and humor as "idiotic" and the toilet humor as "gratuitous and more gross than funny." Additionally, the film received a score of 27 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally negative reviews," based on an analysis of 25 reviews. Analyzing the individual performances in the film, Robert K. Elder of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "With her Julia Roberts-like vulnerability and kewpie-doll eyes,Potter certainly outshines Prinze, who doesn't deviate much from his past teen dream roles—though he's winsome just the same.

By most standards, the film was financially unsuccessful. Released on February 2, 2001, the film opened at #7 in 2,338 theaters and grossed $4,804,595 in the opening weekend at the North American box office. The final domestic grossing was $10.4 million while the foreign market grossed $2.7 million for a worldwide total of $13,127,022. Against its $14 million budget, the film was a flop.