Love Stinks (1999) Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com Member: Online Film Critics Society
*** out of four
"I'm gonna sue your ass for damages; FOR DAMAGING MY ASS!!!"
Starring French Stewart, Bridgette Wilson, Bill Bellamy, Tyra Banks. Rated R.
The anti-romantic comedy is a genre (and it is a genre) that can never aim for blockbuster status at the box-office. Who wants to see a comedy about bad relationships? Most people have enough of that in their own lives. To kick off the 1999 fall season, here's a movie -- and a good one -- that tries to play off that notion. Touting the eye-catching tagline "A Movie About a Relationship that's Worse than Yours," Love Stinks, a shamelessly hilarious comedy, says that it's all right to laugh at people's romantic travails.
3rd Rock From the Sun vet French Stewart gets his first shot at a leading role playing Seth Winnick, a successful sitcom writer who falls for Chelsea (Bridgette Wilson), a spunky interior decorator. Seth is well-intentioned, but his new girlfriend has just one thing on her mind: marriage. She is manipulative and deceitful -- even more so than most other women (sorry, couldn't resist) -- and is willing to go to almost any length to get an engagement ring out of the indecisive Seth, who, in, turn refuses to say that he doesn't want to marry Chelsea but doesn't propose either.
As his romance with Chelsea gets worse and worse, so does his sitcom (which he likes to base partly on his life), and he is in danger of losing his job. Chelsea doesn't seem to care; she schemes and plots all the more intensely to walk down the isle with Seth. But when after a year of waiting, Seth gives her diamond earrings instead of a ring, she goes bonkers, moves out and slaps Seth with a palimony suit, leaving him with nothing to do but think up a scheme of his own.
After I realized that the first 15 minutes of Love Stinks stunk, I was starting to get psyched for actively hating the rest of it. But the comedy picked up and before I knew it, I was laughing hysterically and immensely enjoying this irresistably anarchic production. Indeed, Jeff Franklin's (I can just hear a tv spot announcing "From the man behind Full House comes an audacious comedy in the spirit of American Pie...") film breaks every rule of the romantic comedy and does it with such glee that even when a gag is fully predictable it's still entertaining.
I can see people perceiving Love Stinks to be a tirade against women. At first glance, that's just what it seems to be. But, as the trailer for the upcoming American Beauty proclaims, "Look closer." Everything that transpires in the film is as much the guy's doing as it is the girl's. The film's final twist shows us that it's not only women who can be scheming and manipulative.
French Stewart is engaging, though slightly irritating as the unwilling potential groom-to-be. His voice started to get on my nerves about halfway though, but it's a respectable first lead performance. Bridgette Wilson is deliciously bad-grrl, but Tyra Banks, who plays Chelsea's friend should keep her day job (she's a supermodel). Under the laid-back direction of Franklin, we tend to notice mostly the good in the performances; the flaws are masked by hilarity.
The most important virtue of Love Stinks is that it is very, very funny. The gags come at a furious pace, and even the ones that don't work manage to supplement the film's purposefully unromantic atmosphere. If it were a romantic comedy, it would be one of the best ones of the year; as it stands, Love Stinks is a glorious antidote to the romantic comedy. It's a movie about a relationship that's worse than yours. Go see it. ©1999 Eugene Novikov ‰
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