Bringing Down the House

Peter Sanderson is a strait-laced lawyer still hung up on his ex-wife and struggling to move on. He takes a chance on an online chat and arranges a date with a woman who presents herself as a fellow attorney, only to find someone entirely different on his doorstep: Charlene Morton, who has escaped from prison and wants Peter to clear her name. He wants nothing to do with her, but she refuses to leave, and her presence soon disrupts his orderly household and his carefully managed professional life.

Adam Shankman directed the film, his third feature after The Wedding Planner and A Walk to Remember. Jason Filardi wrote the screenplay, and the cast includes Queen Latifah as Charlene, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright, Jean Smart and Kimberly J. Brown alongside Steve Martin as Peter. Released in March 2003, the comedy cost about 33 million dollars and took in roughly 165 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget.

Audience reactions were mild: on IMDb the film holds 5.6 out of 10 from around 41,000 votes, and on TMDB 6 out of 10 from a much smaller pool of voters. A critics' rating of 4.9 out of 10 across 148 reviews places it below even the modest audience scores. The film sits early in Shankman's directing career, before the sequels and musicals that followed.