It is a romantic comedy of interwoven stories of a group of friends
and lovers in the city of Los Angeles.
Lisa Kudrow plays Mamie an abortion
counselor and Charley (Steve Coogan), her stepbrother, a gay restauranteur.
Mamie, scared by a teenage pregnancy had given up her son for adoption. Now she has a Latino
immigrant, Javier, as boyfriend.
Pam (Laura Dern)
is a lesbian who is raising a two year old boy. Gil (David Sutcliffe) who was her best
friend is fighting a custody battle with her. Now Gil has a gay
relationship with Charley.
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jude a free spirited liberal
who uses sex as a device to get her things done. She sleeps with a wealthy old
man Frank (Tom Arnold) as well as seduces his son Otis (Jason Ritter) who is a
young gay musician.
Another character in the film is Nicky (Jesse Bradford) an
aspiring filmmaker who claims to have information about the son Mamie gave up
for adoption and he tries to extort Mamie. The movie revolves around all these
characters and the problems they have.
Director Don Ross narrates an
unusual kind of romantic story that involves lovers, friends as well as
strangers. He gets subtle performance out of all the characters involved. He
freely explores sex and love and successfully portrays people's problems with
different subjective solutions, so that audience can also easily come up with their
own solutions.
Talented actress Lisa Kudrow presents an excellent performance as
Mamie. She is funny and comically brilliant. Rest of the cast have also done a good
job. The film is not well structured and it lacks a serious theme. Sex scenes are
funny but effective. Movie emphasis the importance of human connection with one
another. Even though the characters are sexually ambiguous in one way or the
other, they are all good entertainers.
We rate this movie ABOVE AVERAGE.