n the "Failure to Launch" DVD, meet Tripp, a highly slick (and oddly shiny) 35-year-old yacht salesman (Matthew McConaughey) who drives a Porsche and still lives with his folks. You see, he's a self-proclaimed serial dater who hangs with other "adultescents" and uses his parents’ residence as a sure-fire way to rid himself of those clingy dates. His two best buddies Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper) also refuse to leave home.

Tripp romances women in droves, and he always ends relationships the same way - by bringing the unsuspecting woman back to his place - his parents' house. She’ll of course be surprised that her man still lives with his parents, and will quickly vacate the premises. But mom (Kathy Bates) and dad (Terry Bradshaw, the former football star turned TV commentator), long for the freedom of empty nesters, so they hire an "intervention specialist." That’d be Paula (a breezy Sarah Jessica Parker), a “professional motivator” whose job is convincing middle-aged men living with their parents to move out. The strategy of Paula's outlandish business is to wiggle her way into the guy's heart and prod him to finally leave the nest. Once he's moved out and into their future love-nest, she’ll dump him like a rock and run. No word on how they recover after she dumps them, which you might think would damage their self-esteem even more… and move back. But that’s left out of the story.

So, Tripp and Paula have a few dates and eventually, as is the trajectory of most romantic comedies, they fall in love. Tripp is not the typical loser-slacker that Paula works on, and she accidentally falls for her client after her techniques backfire, but before she gets the chance to tell him the truth about the arrangement.

Story aside, the two stars make their characters more appealing than you might initially think. Among the large supporting cast, Zooey Deschanel scores the biggest laughs as Paula's cute-loopy roommate, who would love to kill the mockingbird that resides outside her bedroom window and won't stop chirping. In any case, the film is surprisingly well cast. Bates is in fine comic mode, although we wind up seeing a tad too much of Bradshaw (he longs for a "naked room" where he can let his pigskin hang out), is goofy and affectionate and does a lot of mugging - in other words, he's playing himself.