When three heroes = zero heroes

At the risk of Topher Grace thinking I'm picking on him, here are my two cents on Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!

I didn't expect it to be anything more than a trifle... a sweet, charming, romantic comedy. But I also didn't expect to get so lost in it. And for such a simple reason: it doesn't have a protagonist. Instead, it splits the hero role three ways. There's Josh Duhamel (the character who's changing the most); there's Kate Bosworth (the character who's acting, and therefore driving the story); and there's dear, dear Topher (the character our heart's with). The film never figures out where to put its weight, and leaves us grasping, trying to figure out who to root for. The result? Er, we root for no one. How can you get invested when you don't even know what you want to happen?

The results of rooting for no one? The movie feels about three hours long.

But the most bizarre impact of this protagonist-splitting is that the film's ending actually feels a little mean-spirited-- Topher and Kate get together (duh) and Josh, who has seriously been through the ringer throughout the story, gets nothing. Why does the guy who works the hardest, and changes the most, get the shaft here? Doesn't seem right at all.

Topher, I'll leave you alone now. But I'll be watching.