The Proposal: Plot Summary

Margaret Tate is not your average office manager. Hailing from Toronto, she is a high-powered, stone-cold New York City book editor determined to do whatever is necessary to advance the company. Her assistant, Andrew Paxton, is quite the opposite. Margaret’s “sweet, sweet Andrew” does everything in his power to make her happy in the hopes that he might one day, too, become an editor. Margaret is well on her way to securing more high-profile book deals when one tiny little thing puts a kink in her plans. When the United States Immigration Office starts knocking and threatening to deport her to Canada, she has to think fast and come up with a solution. What better way to sneak around immigration laws than to sneak and coerce Andrew into marrying her! At first, Andrew finally puts his foot down and says no, but a quick book offer and promotion to editor quickly changes his mind. In order to keep up with their steadily winding web of deception, Andrew and Margaret are ultimately forced to fly to Andrew’s native Alaska to spend the weekend visiting his quirky family and announcing their engagement. Through awkward engagement parties, unwelcome girls outings, overbearing parents, baby-making conversations and nature chants with crazy Grandma Annie, and immigration agents lurking around every corner, Margaret and Andrew struggle to get through the weekend and keep their story straight. It seems that the weekend cannot possibly go any worse when Andrew’s family abruptly suggests that they get married that very weekend while the family is all together. When the wedding day arrives, Margaret eventually confesses the whole story and leaves Andrew standing at the altar, making him realize that he had actually fallen in love with her. With the help of some quick thinking, harsh conversations, and a faked heart attack by Grandma Annie, Andrew chases Margaret back to New York and finds her packing up her office to go back to Canada. Finally, in an unlikely twist of events, Margaret and Andrew express their love to each other publicly and get married, keeping her from being deported and allowing them to really date each other.