Yet another little film to come out of the Sundance festival with big ideas, or big head. It undeniably had a concept to start with, pretty well summed up in the cutesy closing credit, "Based on a story by Duncan North. Based on an idea by Duncan North. Based on Duncan North." North is one of three credited screenwriters, together with director Jenniphr Goodman and leading lady Greer Goodman (sisters), and he is the real-life model for the protagonist, an overweight underachiever (except when it comes to bagging women) who, with his houseful of fellow idlers, has erected a philosophy of self-justification around the Platonic ideal of "Steve" -- "the prototypical cool American male" (e.g., Steve McQueen), the antithesis of "Stu." This much, given its provenance, has an inevitable ring of reality to it; and Donal Logue, with a twelve-pound turkey under his shirt, expansively fleshes out the concept, so that it grows into a character, a performance, a person. Waistline notwithstanding, however, he remains the small center of a little film. What takes shape around him is not so much a "story" as a chastening rebuttal, a sermonizing object lesson, a motherly reprimand, a feminist reprisal. Or in short, Ms. Right: "Don Giovanni slept with thousands of women because he was afraid he wouldn't be loved by one." For every line that jumps off the screen (to his doctor: "I'll have the occasional pack-a-day"), there are dozens more that lie lifeless on the page, overly written and virtually unspeakable. A couple of catchy tunes provide life-support for a minute or two, but it's never a good sign when a movie's highpoints are off-screen. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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