Romantic comedy has a twist but little punch
Mildly diverting but slight, the screwball comedy Gray Matters changes it up, more or less creating its own genre, the curveball farce.
Mildly diverting but slight, the screwball comedy
Gray Matters
changes it up, more or less creating its own genre, the curveball farce.
Gray and Sam (Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh) are the perfect Manhattan couple, long-limbed, drop-dead gorgeous professionals (she's in advertising, he's a medical resident) who would stop traffic if New York weren't already gridlocked.
Gray and Sam, I should mention, are siblings. Sam is ready for a romantic partner. Gray, who ditzes and dithers like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. . ., can think of a thousand reasons she's not.
Except for the real one.
This reason is one she doesn't realize until she fixes up her brother with Charlie (Bridget Moynahan), that cute brunette in the dog park.
The reason that Gray hasn't found a guy to float her boat is that, it turns out, guys just don't ringy her dinghy. Charlie does. And Sam is in love with her. How can Gray pursue her heart's desire without breaking her beloved brother's heart?
Say this for rookie writer/director Sue Kramer: She's come up with an original twist to distinguish her romantic comedy from the formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.
Sadly, Kramer's dialogue has considerably less snap than her premise. And Graham, though possessed of a cheerleader's face and centerfold's body, is to comic timing what William Hung is to perfect pitch.
Graham is cute, cute, cute, but suffers from the mistaken impression that zipping through her lines at supersonic speed is funny. It works for Meg Ryan, but Ryan has dialogue by Nora Ephron and a way of tickling her words. Graham has a way of hammering them. To death.
Kramer is nothing if not ambitious, appropriating the style and pace of '40s musicals and comedies.
Yes, Gray and Charlie dance together to "I Won't Dance" as they mimic Lucille Bremer and Van Johnson in Till the Clouds Roll By. And yes, Gray and Sam hurl zingers at each other like Roz Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. But by the time Our Heroine realizes that she is, as she says, "rhymes with Gray," it seems that the characters are hurling sinkers.
Gray Matters ** (out of four stars)
Produced by Jill Footlick, John J. Hermansen and Sue Kramer, written and directed by Kramer, photography by John S. Bartley, music by Andrew Hollander, distributed by Yari Film Group.
Running time: 1 hour, 36 mins.
Gray. . . Heather Graham
Charlie. . . Bridget Moynahan
Carrie. . . Molly Shannon
Sam. . . Thomas Cavanagh
Gordy. . . Alan Cumming
Parent's guide: PG-13 (sexual candor)
Playing at: Riverview Stadium 17
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