Dodgy liaisons

Nick Nolte with Julia Roberts? Sean Connery with Catherine Zeta-Jones? Eric Idle with CZJ? Michael Douglas with . . . oh, wait a second, that one's real life. The oddly paired cinematic couple can reveal a lot about an actor or film-maker - often more than they intend. But how do so many strange, creepy or plain mismatched couples end up on our cinema screens, asks JOE GRIFFIN

MIND THE AGE GAP

Born of a mix between movie-star narcissism, double standards and a lack of understanding of relationships, the May/December relationship is a common staple of films. The most infamous is the gap between Sean Connery (then 69) and Catherine Zeta Jones (then 29) in Entrapment. He's literally old enough to be her grandfather. Twilighthas similar issues: I know he's a vampire, but any film where someone in his 90s dates a teenager is a little dubious. What would they talk about? I imagine he'd be reminiscing about the first World War while she'd be sharing a Lady Gaga video on Facebook. Creepier still, in Bicentennial ManRobin Williams plays a 200-year-old former robot who marries the granddaughter of his first love. Silver fox Richard Gere is the most regular offender here: in Pretty Womanhe plays a 41-year-old customer of prostitutes (shudder), who falls for 23-year-old Julia Roberts. The gap is even steeper in Autumn in New York, in which the then-51-year-old Gere hooks up with Winona Ryder (then 29).

THE APATOW EFFECT

After hitting pay dirt with The 40 Year Old Virginand Knocked Up, director and writer Judd Apatow has made a good living by pairing the geeks with the gorgeous. Granted, in his first two films they acknowledged the strangeness of pairing, respectively, Steve Carrell with Catherine Keener and Seth Rogen with Katherine Heigl. But his subsequent productions didn't bother to explain why beautiful women would gravitate towards unmotivated slobs: Superbadpaired Jonah Hill with Emma Stone, Funny Peoplehad Adam Sandler hook up with Leslie Mann, and in Forgetting Sarah Marshallthe scruffy, downbeat Jason Segal bounced from Kristen Bell to the even more beautiful Mila Kunis. Perhaps inspired by working with Apatow, the forthcoming Grown Upswill feature Salma Hayek as Adam Sandler's wife. And it's this post-Apatow world that brought us Hitch, in which an overweight accountant (Kevin James) lands a model (Amber Valetta).

KOOKY/SEXY

A lot of screenwriters seem to think that eccentricity is an attractive quality in itself, so in Movieland, the misunderstood, and sometimes hostile loner is seen as desirable, not pitiable. (Is it cynical to suggest that these kooky leading men are projections of the screenwriters?) Hence, in Lars and the Real Girl, a young man seamlessly goes from a public relationship with a sex doll, to a real relationship with an attractive woman. In Benny and Joon,Benny (Johnny Depp) is a dim-witted, period-clothes-wearing Buster Keaton obsessive who wins the heart of the fair Joon (Mary Stewart Masterson). Bed of Roses(also starring Masterson) saw a stalker break into a woman's apartment and fill it with wall-to-wall flowers. Thankfully the stalker was played by dreamboat Christian Slater. The same Slater played a slightly different stalker in Untamed Heart, in which he who wins the heart of a pretty waitress (Marisa Tomei). In Greenberg, a mentally ill, short, angry, rude, unemployed pedant (Ben Stiller) somehow seduces an attractive, kind 25-year-old (Greta Gerwig). Good thing he's kooky.

SELF-SERVING DIRECTORS

In The Mirror Has Two Faces, Barbara Streisand cast herself as Jeff Bridges's girlfriend, who (bear with me) goes through an ugly-duckling transformation and is fancied not only by Bridges but by a handsome acquaintance (Pierce Brosnan). Then, of course, there's Woody Allen. Women like funny men, but with on-screen lovers including Elisabeth Shue, Mira Sorvino and Julia Roberts, he's really pushing it. And let's not forget Splitting Heirs, in which fiftysomething writer, producer and star Eric Idle casts himself as a twentysomething, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as his girlfriend.

SCHEDULING ISSUES

Sometimes it's old-fashioned vanity, but on other occasions it feels like it's a scheduling issue. The very odd casting of Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts in I Love Trouble suggests a slapdash pairing of whatever stars happened to be available at the time. Nolte is talented, but when it comes to on-screen romance he's no Grant (Hugh or Cary). What would Roberts see in this grizzled oddball? And speaking of Roberts, what would a spoilt movie star want with a clumsy bookshop owner who speaks like Richard Curtis (but doesn't have his money)? Notting Hillgave us no answers. When Basic Instinctwas made, Michael Douglas was the bigger star than Sharon Stone, which goes some way to explaining how he was cast as her leading man.