NEXT STOP WONDERLAND A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"Frisky, cultured, and carefree professional," reads Erin Castleton's ad in the personals section of the newspaper. She is actually nothing of the kind - her pushy mother put in the ad for her without asking. That's probably okay since the men who answer the ad aren't what they claim to be either.
Director and editor Brad Anderson makes the ad the centerpiece of his breezy, little romantic comedy. Heavy on the melancholy, the tale has a pervasive score full of dreamy, sad rhythms.
Erin is a blonde with pasty white skin and dark red make-up, played by Hope Davis from THE DAYTRIPPERS. Davis gives such a reserved performance that the audience doesn't know much more about Erin when the story ends than when it began. Erin's most visible trait is her reluctance to smile, and the film's biggest mystery is who will make her smile and when.
Erin is a Harvard Medical School dropout who is now a registered nurse, but the hospital part of the story is largely irrelevant. The movie concerns Erin's search for a compatible partner. (The film opens with her live-in boyfriend, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, moving out. He leaves her a videotape that explains point by point his complaints about her.)
In a parallel story, Alan Gelfant plays Alan Monteiro, a 35-year-old plumber who is studying to become a marine biologist. He's a serious type and looks a decade older than his age. With a constant, two-day-old beard, he still manages to attract a young student who looks like she just graduated from high school. He tries to fend her off, but she keeps coming on to him. Like Davis, Gelfant doesn't reveal much with his acting.
In an overly complicated story, Alan works at an aquarium that wants to expand into the same area where some shady characters want to put a mausoleum. Since Alan has borrowed money for his schooling from a loan shark, he is asked to kill Puffy the blowfish, the aquarium's and the kids' favorite fish. With the fish out of the way, the bad guys hope the aquarium will become so unpopular it will not want to expand. This whole subplot borders on the ridiculous and isn't particularly funny.
In easily the best part of the film, Erin chooses to call back the 60+ men who responded to the ad. Like a sequence from a Woody Allen movie, we see a whole series of "suitors" telling Erin lies calculated to win her heart or at least get her into bed.
One guy says he is talking to her from the small business he owns, but he is actually on the toilet. When he pulls off some toilet paper, he tells her it is an incoming FAX.
Another man claims he is a graduate student at a divinity school. She forces him to trip over his own logic when he starts down the minefield of discussing whether God is male or female.
Most guys try trite come-on lines with "You're the most beguiling woman I've ever met" being typical. One man drops his wedding ring. He sheepishly claims that he was divorced years ago and that he just keeps it in his pocket as a memento.
Most men are so full of themselves that they sound like they might burst at any moment. "I'm out there grabbing," one would-be boyfriend modestly explains his philosophy of life. "I see. I want. I take."
This extended comedy sketch of her interviews and trial dates works marvelously well, but it is not enough to sustain an entire movie. The rest of the picture marks time until the sappy ending, which the story telegraphs in advance.
Uta Briesewitz's handheld camera work is dizzying and confusing. Coupled with Anderson's fast paced and erratic editing, the movie becomes disorienting. Jokes like the answering machine that keeps repeating "You have no messages" lose their punch in the frenzy of the hyperactive editing.
With several good laughs and an undeniable charm, the picture can be quite entertaining. With fewer attempts at cuteness with the camera and the editing and with the elimination of some of the subplots, the movie could have really blossomed. As delivered, however, it has a hilarious comedy sketch in the middle but little more.
NEXT STOP WONDERLAND runs 1:51. It is rated R for profanity and sexual situations and would be fine for teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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