So-so French rom-com opens: Payet & Lauga's RELATIONSHIP STATUS: IT’S COMPLICATED

If you're a sucker for rom-coms, by all means take a look at the new French one from not-quite-yet triple-threat Manu Payet (who stars, co-directs and co-writes) and Rodolphe Lauga (who only co-directs), infelicitously titled in English, RELATIONSHIP STATUS: IT'S COMPLICATED (in French, it's Situation amoureuse: C'est compliqué). Nothing here is all that complicated actually; it's just dumb. And it rather follows in the footsteps of another, better rom-com from last year, Girl on a Bicycle.

That's M. Payet on the poster above, and if one quick glance tells you that he plays his large eyes and hang-dog expression for everything they're worth, you're on the mark. (At this point is his career, however, they may not be worth as much as he imagines.) M. Lauga, shown at left, fares better, simply by positioning himself as co-director only. The story, similar to Girl on a Bicycle, finds a nearly married young man suddenly infatuated with another woman. In this case, it's the girl our hero was in love with back in his school days, who has re-appeared in Paris and in his life.

The two women -- bride-to-be and old non-flame -- are played, respectively, by Anaïs Demoustier (above, and lately of Bird People) and our own Emmanuelle Chriqui (below), both of whom do their best to bring cliches to life. The screenplay is mostly a string of these, and while it is what you might call "professional" it is also full of coincidence, silliness and agitation over little.

The supporting cast offers a couple of OK male performances, via Philippe Duquesne as the Demoustier character's nutty dad and Jean François Cayrey (at left, below) as our hero's not-so-good friend.

The movie's climax comes precisely at the one-hour point, and then we have a 38-minute denouement, which is a little too long. There's not enough content here for the movie's length, and what there is seems mostly second-hand. The film does boast a relatively charming scene in a museum (below), and a bit of dancing-in-the-street fantasy, at bottom.

Considering the attitude and intelligence of the character played by M. Manu, this film is one of the least deserving of a happy ending. But, hey, it's a rom-com, so whatcha gonna do? The actual brief ending, however, is quiet, real and nicely done. If only the rest of the movie had kept some of this smart, subdued style in mind.

Relationship Status: It's Complicated opens today, Friday, October 17, in New York City, exclusively at the Quad Cinema. Elsewhere? Nothing scheduled as yet. We'll try to keep you posted.

Sort-of streaming tip: Ishai Setton & Jim Beggarly's ensemble-com, THE KITCHEN

When you love an independent filmmaker's work as much as TrustMovies did THE BIG BAD SWIM -- the first full-length feature from director Ishai Setton and writer Daniel Schechter, you approach any later of their work with some trepidation. Sure enough, nothing has quite lived up to the enormous achievement of that initial movie. New to Netflix streaming, however, and worth a watch for its fast pace, sometimes smart dialog and mostly excellent performances, even if it doesn't hold a candle to "Swim," THE KITCHEN is the latest rom-com ensemble work form Mr. Setton, this time featuring with a screenplay by Jim Beggarly, who last year gave us the smarter and better Free Samples.

Mr. Setton, shown at left, does seem to favor ensemble casts -- Kitchen's is a lot larger than that of Swim -- and he handles them pretty well. In the latter movie, his excellent cast ranged over several decades in age. The Kitchen's array of young people sticks mostly to the 20s to 30 age range, and thus the interests and experience of these near-kids are much more limited. The focus here often seems more difficult for Setton and Beggarly to grasp firmly enough. In Beggarly's Free Samples, the focus was always on Jess Weixler (who also appeared in Swim), an actress who can easily keep that focus. In this latest movie, this is more difficult because the film-making team keeps shifting from person to person and back again, with a cast that includes at least a dozen, would-be important characters, all vying for your interest and time in a movie that lasts but 78 minutes.

The most important character here is Jennifer, played by Laura Prepon (above, left, and below, right), whose birthday it is today, with a big party organized for the occasion, even though she has just broken up with her boyfriend of two or three years (Bryan Greenberg, above, right) because he's been cheating on her. Just how and with whom becomes more and more apparent as the party movies along.

Jennifer's sister Penny (Dreama Walker, above, left, and below, right) has her own surprise up her sleeve (or under her midriff), and she in turn is lusted after by a young man called Kenny (Tate Ellington). Kenny & Penny: awww, that's so sweet!

Setton and Beggarly have told their tale in pretty-close-to-real-time fashion, which makes things move quickly. We don't grow bored, that's for certain. The movie takes place all in the same location, too: the kitchen and its immediate environs of the house where some of these folk live and in which the party is now going on.

But as characters come and go, babble and fight, offer tidbits of exposition that sometimes go places, sometimes not, we begin to want a little more. (Shown above are Pepper Binkley, left, and Amber Stevens, right.)

Jennifer is about to strike out on her own and open a new art gallery, which plays into things. But all the characters soon begin to seem awfully mindless and shallow -- even Jennifer, about whom we can't help but wonder what kind of a relationship she and her oh-so-obvious cad of a boyfriend had if she suspected nothing untoward was going on.

In the very large cast, lots of actors register pleasantly. I was particularly taken with Stan, the party planner (Matt Bush, above, left) and friend-of-a-friend named Nikki (Jillian Clare), being kissed against the kitchen shelving, below.

If the trials and tribulations of twenty-somethings jerk your chain, by all means give this little movie a watch. You can view it now on Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video, and via DVD.

Stream a Kat Coiro/Kate Bosworth mini-fest: AND WHILE WE WERE HERE & LIFE HAPPENS

The name Kat Coiro (the actress/writer/director/ producer is shown at right) is coming up a bit on Netflix these days, what with the recent limited theatrical release of her movie AND WHILE WE WERE HERE and an earlier one, LIFE HAPPENS, both now available to stream. Neither film is spectacular or must-see material, but both have things going on that make them worth a watch. Both also star Kate Bosworth (below, left), a performer TrustMovies usually enjoys watching. Ms Bosworth -- a very pretty, blond actress who may initially seem like this millennium's version of Sandra Dee

-- possesses more pointed, sharper features than the round-faced Ms Dee had in her heyday, while her choice of material (Black Rock, Another Happy Day, Big Sur) has proven rather dark, and sometimes as sharp as her pert features. In these two collaborations between Coiro and Bosworth -- one lighter, the other darker -- we get a chance to see (to some extent) just what both women are capable of.

While the rom-com Life Happens is an ensemble piece, offering a host of good performers doing their thing and mostly making it work, And While We Were Here, is a rom-dram

(tending toward melodram) showcase for Bosworth, who stars as an unhappy wife named Jane, vacation-ing in Naples while her musician husband works a gig there.

Jane herself is working on a book about her grandmother's time in England during WWII, and much of the movie is given over to her listening to tapes on Gran's reminiscences (voiced by Claire Bloom, whom we never, unfortunately, get to see). Out walking one day, Jane asks directions of a young man, and her question leads eventually to a relationship developing.

The husband is played by Iddo Goldberg (above right, with Ms Bosworth), the young man by Jamie Blackley (below). Both are effectively used as foils for Jane, one seeming to imprison her, even as the other offers freedom. The real questions, however, involve identity: Who is Jane and what does she really want?

Ms Coiro and her crack cameraman, Doug Chamberlain, use space and composition quite well, and some of the shots of Naples and its bay and famous castle, in high-definition, are eye-poppingly gorgeous. After watch-ing the film, I felt as if I'd taken a nice vacation to a country I dearly love.

Ms Bosworth is unafraid to make Jane sometimes annoying and petty, and she pulls us into her situation as well as possible, given the so-so screenplay (also by Ms Coiro) that goes from not begin nearly detailed and specific enough in its almost impersonal dialog to occasionally and obviously spelling things out that would be better left unsaid.

Overall, though, the movie works, thanks to the performers, the exquisite location, and the fine visuals throughout.

In Life Happens, Ms Bosworth plays Deena, a bent-on-success writer and best-friend/roommate of Kim (Krysten Ritter, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ms Coiro), a dog-walker and animal lover who longs to open a shopping mall devoted exclusively to pets. The third roommate is a 20-something young woman named Laura (Rachel Bilson), whose main claim to fame is that she is still a virgin. The three -- shown below, with Bosworth at right, Bilson center and Ritter at left -- make a fetching trio.

This is a rom-com, and so into the mix must come some men. Three of them --  Jason Biggs, shown below, left; Justin Kirk, center; and Geoff Stults, right -- do their studly stuff just fine, with Stults' non-pushy sexuality and Kirk's comic quirks a big plus (Biggs' role is barely there).

There are some cute moments -- off an on -- in the film's first half, but as written and acted, these characters, the girls in particular, seem so insistently spunky and cute that the movie is always threatening to curdle on us. Again, it's the screenplay, which offers up girls so dumb regarding everything from condom use to job hunting that our sympathy is soon in short supply. "When one of them finally admits, "We acted like total mental patients!" you will sadly agree.

If you last out the first half, however, the remainder of the movie brightens considerably. Characters begin acting like real people and the adults they are, and you realize that the film might just earn its happy ending. (How Bilson's professional virgin makes her condition pay off is particuarly juicy.)

You can stream both movies off Netflix now, although DVDs and other viewing sources are also available.

On DVD, digital and showing tonight only in Fort Lauderdale: Zachary Weil's TASTE IT!

A first full-length film that came to TrustMovies' attention via Zachary Weil, the filmmaker himself (shown just below), TASTE IT: A Comedy About the Recession is having a one-performance showing at 10pm tonight at the Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale, having made its DVD and digital platform debut last month. Produced for only $30,000, the movie looks pretty damn professional, considering, and features several good performances.

Taste It begins on a high note, with a cute, original and funny/sweet scene of early morning lovemaking, with both situation and dialog quite up to snuff. The next few scenes are equally well done, and it looks as if we're in for some good fun regarding our country's -- hell, most of the world's -- current economic situation. If only. The movie never completely disintegrates, but as it moves along, it seems to give in far too easily to its most crass and over-the-top leanings.

But let's start with the good stuff: Weil has cast his film, with one exception, quite well. His two leads are played by very attractive performers who can also act: John McGlothlin (shown above and at center in the photo at bottom) as our put-upon hero and -- making her screen debut -- former Playboy playmate from August 2010, Francesco Frigo. Ms Frigo, below, is required to do little but smile and speak and finally kiss and neck, but she does it all quite nicely and looks very good doing it. (Although the question must be asked: are there no young women in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area with bodies remaining at all natural, particularly in the boobs department? The ladies in this film are so oversized and stuffed that they look like they all came from the same implant facility. Maybe they did.)

The one major mis-casting coup is having the film's co-screenwriter, Adam Chefitz, play -- with little comedy charisma and way too broadly -- the hero's best friend, Wally. Chefitz's performance is so loud, crass and over-the-top that you'll occasionally want to grab a brick to put him out of his (and your) misery. The worst offense is having him sing, below and barely professionally, an entire rock song -- which I believe he co-wrote and will remind you perhaps a little too much of a better song, Jump! -- which literally stops the movie in its tracks.

Turns out the film has its own villain (played super-sneeringly by Blake Logan, below) who is rich and entitled and keeps popping up to do damage. The best acting job by far is delivered by a fellow named Andrew Roth -- he's loose, relaxed and utterly believable moment-to-moment -- who plays the manager of the club/bar/
restaurant where our group hangs out. The plot's twists and turns, all taking our hero toward not just doing the right thing but doing what he really wants, are standard stuff, in which everything good happens far too easily, and, for that matter, everything bad, too.

There is the de regueur scene of a misunderstanding arising from overhearing a situation without actually seeing it, too -- after which the girls imagine that the guys are gay. Well, at least the film gets credit for being inclusive: blacks and gays get their day in the sun, as another of our hero's pals discovers his true calling as he's being screwed at the hands of a would-be girlfriend by a very odd and super-sized dildo. (The movie is R-rated, of course.)

In other, more talented hands, all this might have been more fun, instead of merely serviceable. On the other hand, this is Mr. Weil's first full-length film, and by that standard, the guy has achieved something that looks professional, adheres to the feel-good agenda, and should please undiscriminating tastes. We'll see what the filmmaker comes up with next time. Meanwhile, if you're not in the Fort Lauderdale area tonight for the 10pm show, you can find out how to order the DVD or a streaming screening via Chill and/or Amazon by clicking here.

Matthias Schweighöfer's WHAT A MAN proves the comedy-doesn't-travel theory

Variety is fond of telling us that comedy rarely travels well: ours to foreign climes, theirs to us. The best example I've seen of this theory lately is the German movie opening this week, WHAT A MAN. Written and directed by its star, Matthias Schweighöfer (whose personality--on the basis of his work here, at least--could curdle milk), the movie would seem to be arriving in theaters maybe ten to twenty years late so far as its theme -- a fellow doesn't have to be super macho to be a man -- is concerned.

Herr Schweighöfer, shown at right, hangs one cliche upon another in his quest to assure us plenty of comedy and screwed-up romance, as that feel-good finale lines up in our sites. The filmmaker/star does get points for upending the usual race to the airport to catch his true love, and, in fact, the film's finale almost (but not quite) makes up for much of its previous missteps. The writer/director also does some amusing things with the ever-popular panda (below), though much else in this tired fun-fest seems to have been milked dry eons earlier.

The story, such as it is, has to do with a sweet elementary school teacher, played by Schweighöfer, who is clearly out of his element and woefully mismatched with a sexy, up-and-coming actress/TV personality (played by Mavie Hörbiger, below). How these two ever got together is the film's biggest mystery.

 
Almost from the starting gate we're privy to the fact that his female best friend (Sibell Kekilli, shown below, of When We Leave) would make a much better match, and so any suspense or surprise is pretty much drained from the outset.

But that doesn't stop our hero/filmmaker, who mugs his way through it all rather grossly. Plus, he drags us through what seems like endless and not particularly amusing situations in which he and we join a macho men's group (below),

go partying to meet the ladies (the movie's worst scene by far) and get involved with the very macho upstairs neighbor, played by the very macho Thomas Kretschmann (below, right).

None of this matters much, unless you are relatively new to movies and to rom-coms and so find it all spanking new. But, as I say, the ending has its moments and its charm, and so that may help bring you into the fold, as it were.

What a Man (from Fox International and running 95 minutes) opens today, Friday, November 30, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25, and in Queens at the Cinemart Cinemas in Forest Hills. It is also simultaneously opening in the Los Angeles area at the Phoenix Big Cinemas Dos Lagos 15, in Corona, CA.

That biological clock--Afr-Am version--gets a workout in Russ Parr's 35 AND TICKING

Joining the ranks of movies about women's biological clock ticking off the time remaining for natural conception comes Russ Parr's African-American version, 35 AND TICKING.  As an indie rom-com with mainstream aspirations, Parr's film is a light year or so better than the last such film TrustMovies sat through this past fall (the execrable Speed Dating). For that alone, it's worth a recommendation.

That said, I wish the movie were better. As director, Mr. Parr (pictured at left), while no award-winner, hits his marks well enough, coaxing decent performances from a cast that is pretty much on the same page so that it appears an ensemble is performing rather than a bunch of disparate actors. His movie has energy, too, and plenty of humor -- though one might want a dash more sophistica-tion now and again. Which brings us to Parr's weak point, although this is certainly not apparent initially: the writing. The movie begins with a lovely little scene between two schoolgirl friends -- one of them bemoaning the fact that she's very tall. Adjusting to oncoming adulthood and the interest of boys, the two girls dream of Michael Jackson and Prince. (Interesting choices, as these have got to be two of the least threatening black males ever to have trod the earth.)

Cut to the present, with our girls now fully grown and having a drink in a local club but still bemoaning their fate. The dialog here is good, too: fast, smart and believable. Zanobia (Nicole Ari Parker, at right, above and below) remains man-less, while Victoria (Tamala Jones, above left) has her man, all right, but he won't commit to having kids. Staunch pal Phil (Keith Robinson, below, center), conversely, is saddled with a wife who's a rotten mother and sleeps around. The fourth wheel is the comic fool Cleavon (Kevin Hart, below, left), who is simply a mess.

From those first couple of well-imagined, positioning scenes, Parr's movie slowly degenerates into repetition, heavy-handedness and cliché. That biological clock is brought up again and again, when once would have been adequate for us to get the point, and Cleavon's trips to the sperm bank (below) grow tiresome fast, as does his inability to ask his dream girl for a date. Sure, one can be tongue-tied, but this character has us worried that he hasn't yet learned to tie his shoelaces.

Victoria's across-the-hall neighbors, clearly here for comic effect, are too ham-fisted to provide much, whereas the scene that might have been the funniest in the film -- a computer-dating-service assignation for Zanobia (involving Clifton Powell, below, left) that becomes a color-coded date from hell -- never takes off as it should -- again, because of the slack and obvious dialog.

Toward the finale, things get wrapped up in the style of decent melodrama that is, if typical, at least a step up from the labored, forced-cohabitation comedy/bathos concoctions of Tyler Perry, with religion thankfully kept to a minimum. If an easy-out is provided for everyone (except, of course, that bad mama, who gets her comeuppance), at least we're happy to see, in true romantic-comedy fashion, that there's a right guy for every gal. A word should be said, too, for Meagan Good (below, left, who plays the object of Cleavon's affection), whose beauty, charm and genuineness just about steal the movie.

35 and Ticking opens this Friday, May 20, in Baltimore, Atlanta and Washington DC. To see a listing of theaters and/or to purchase tickets, click here.