In writer-director Warren Leight's delightfully funny ensemble piece, three New Yorkers, for different reasons, time-share an airy, light-filled Village apartment.
There's oily frat-boy Brian, eager to hang on to his "Lion's Den" for a final few bachelor flings prior to marrying preppie girlfriend Janet (Bateman).There's aspiring chef Sam who works behind the cheese counter at Dean & Deluca's and desperately needs a break from his seven roommates' knee-deep squalor and a girlfriend. And finally there's painter-housewife Ellen who, taking time out from her bossy, boorish hubby and his steeped-in-suburbia mentality, uses the apartment as a studio. With the three sharing the brown-stone on an alternate day rota basis, a misunderstanding swiftly arises when Brian swops a night with Sam, and Ellen falls in love with her unseen fellow tenant who mends her window-box and prepares her culinary delights. Mistakenly believing it to be Brian, she drunkenly embarks on an embarrassing sexual encounter and takes to abusing Sam down the phone at work.
Small in budget and intentions, this deftly scripted Woody Allenesque romantic comedy is a real gem: intelligent, charming, and, best of all, mostly free from relationship-movie cliches. The three principals are effortlessly convincing and there's fun support from the prissy Bateman and Jeanne Tripplehorn as Broderick's ex, an abysmal French performance artist whose stageshow includes self-abuse.