Didactic romantic comedy founded on the hypothesis -- the cold hard fact -- that a terrific female mind and personality will not get a second male glance unless they come in a package such as Uma Thurman. The premise is further chilled and hardened by endowing Thurman with a decidedly subpar mind and personality. (Why does the terrific one tolerate the subpar one as a friend?) But the point is a little fudged by putting the terrific female in the admittedly very much shorter and somewhat wider form of Janeane Garofalo, a charmer and even a cutie in her own right. And the Cyrano-like situation, protracted beyond belief, reduces the desirable male (the British-accented Ben Chaplin) to a dodo: why can't he recognize the voice that's coming out of Garofalo's face? Still, Garofalo delivers her (or screenwriter Audrey Wells's) wry comments as if she well knows what she's talking about, and the lessons never become overbearing, though sometimes overingratiating. Directed by Michael Lehmann. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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