Romantic comedy with a clearly staked-out area of interest -- the baggage of past relationships -- and a novel approach to it: the eaten-alive lover joins the ex-boyfriend's therapy group for reconnaissance purposes. (Further complication: he assumes the persona of his best friend, who in turn expects to get some free counseling in absentia). The dialogue, though full of culture-vulture allusions (Rules of the Game, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), is not all that sharp, and the third-person-omniscient narration is flip and superficial ("Lester gritted his teeth. Ramona had a life before him"), and Eric Stoltz appears overrelaxed and disengaged as the title figure, especially alongside the warmth and genuineness of Annabella Sciorra. And the use of the lilting Georges Delerue theme from Truffaut's Jules and Jim is not just secondhand but sticky-fingered. With Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Bridget Fonda, and Peter Bogdanovich; written and directed by Noah Bambaugh. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd