KISSING JESSICA STEIN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
CAPSULE: The plot is familiar but the writing is usually fresh, funny, and at times moving. Why can't Jessica find a nice guy? Is it because she is seeing a nice, and smart, girl? Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt wrote and star in the film based on their own play chronicling the ups and downs of a straight woman who meets the bisexual Ms. Right. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4)
This is in many ways a fairly prosaic romantic comedy made only slightly less familiar by involving a straight woman who falls into a lesbian relationship. Many of the touches and certainly most of the plot twists are things we have seen before. Jessica Stein (played by Jennifer Westfeldt) is a self-assured, successful young woman in the New York publishing trade. The one hole in her lifestyle is her dysfunctional love life. Jessica is having a really hard time meeting the right man. Her mother (Tovah Feldshuh) is hoping she will meet the right Jewish guy. She goes from dating one man to the next and they are all losers in one way or another and generally not Jessica's intellectual equal. Then she reads a personals ad quoting Rainer Maria Rilke. Whoever placed this ad clearly has a brain. Unfortunately it is a woman seeking another woman, not at all what Jessica has in mind. Just curious to meet the woman who would place such an ad Jessica agrees to meet Helen Cooper (Heather Juergensen) with predictable results.
The screenplay is written by the two lead actresses based on their play "Lipschtick." As new writers they bring some fresh new writing to the film but for the rest they rely on cliche we have seen too frequently before. To show the losers that Jessica has been dating they have a montage of dates' faces, each saying something stupid. I saw that for the first time in SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT, but certainly not the last time. Men in small roles in the film are frequently stupid and the contemporary equivalents of Stepin Fetchit. On the other hand an office friend, Hannah Levine (not listed in any credits I can find) adds some real life to the film. She seems to be a graduate of the Thelma Ritter School of Acting. Frequently the writing is fresh as when Jessica is naive about the mechanics of lesbian sex and Helen has to explain it.
Charles Herman-Wurmfeld directs. This is not an outstanding film, but certainly parts of it work very well. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2001 Mark R. Leeper
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