Puccini for Beginners

Better than Woody Allen's last five movies combined, PUCCINI FOR BEGINNERS is that snappiest, funniest, romantic comedy in recent memory. The cast is spectacular and the direction is flawless. I can't say enough good things about this movie. I first heard about it at Sundance; everyone I know who attended kept telling how I needed to see it. I am not one to buy the hype so I just let the movie fade from memory. Having just seen it, I see that the hype wasn't unjustified; in fact, I'd say it wasn't strong enough. Put simply: this movie is cute. C. U. T. E. Gretchen is adorable, as always. Elizabeth Reaser is a dream come true; she delivers her dialogue with the skill and precision of a government trained sniper. Justin is so affable, you can hardly stand it. Overall, I just have to say that missing this movie highly, highly inadvisable.

This is one of the most delightful romantic comedies I've seen in a long time and one which should get wide distribution and a crossover audience in major cities as well as out-of-the-way communities. The San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival audience last night were stamping their feet and whistling along with the bravos as Maggenti attended the premiere...While it has yet to find a distributor, I'm confident, if last night was any indication, that one will be ringing her phone any minute...funny, witty, smart, a New York scene with wonderful actors, Justin Kirk, the adorable Gretchen Mol and beautiful Elizabeth Reasor...wait till you see it...you'll fall in love with all the characters...congrats, Maria, another success (The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love; The Love Letter, Without a Trace (TV)...)

Written and directed by Maria Maggenti, "Puccini For Beginners" is a tres chic romantic comedy set in a movie-spawned Manhattan where virtually everyone we meet is Caucasian, trendily upscale and sexually conflicted.

The strained setup lands somewhere between a labored screwball sex farce and a recycled Woody Allen angst-fest: Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser) is an opera-loving, afraid-of-commitment lesbian who finds herself inadvertently and simultaneously dating both a man (Justin Kirk) and his longtime girlfriend (winningly played by Gretchen Mol). As Allegra bounces back and forth between her two oblivious paramours, the characters talk out the issues of their relationships as if they were channeling left-over bits from "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan."

"Puccini for Beginners" is one of those small-scale independent features that thinks it's being smarter and more insightful about romantic relationships than it really is. Actually, after all those really sharp Woody Allen exposes on the same subject, very little in this film feels like fresh observation. To be truthful, with the exception of Mol's winsome Grace, most of the characters here are more annoying than they are appealing. Not only are the plotting and much of the writing too cutesy by half, but so is Maggenti's directorial style, which relies heavily on smart-alecky narration, freeze-framing, and dopey fantasy sequences to generate laughs.

"Puccini for Beginners" offers a few genuinely funny moments within its blessedly short 81-minute running time, but throughout we're plagued by the nagging and irreverent suspicion that the film might have been more accurately entitled "Puccini for Idiots."

Puccini for Beginners (2006) was written and directed by Maria Maggenti. It stars Elizabeth Reaser as Allegra, a young lesbian woman and Gretchen Mol as Grace, a young straight woman. Justin Kirk portrays Phillip, who knows them both.

This is a very New York City movie. Allegra is surrounded by beautiful friends and beautiful acquaintances. (Think Sex and the City.) New York City is clean, beautiful, and friendly. (Think Woody Allen.) That NYC centric view is obvious in every frame. I think it's great. I can live without the real New York City for an hour and a half.

The movie is sort of a romantic quadrangle, although that's not exactly right. It's more like a romantic pinwheel, with Reaser in the center, and the other characters rotating around her. I find Reaser to be a fascinating actor. In fact, I bought this DVD because of her superb work in "Sweet Land." The script calls for her to be a fascinating actor. It worked for me.

Apparently, I'm in a real minority in my enjoyment of this movie. It has an IMDb rating of 6.0, which is terrible. I'm not sure why it's rated so low. My suggestion--watch it and judge for yourself.

"Puccini for Beginners" is yet another independent relationship comedy. I remember a long line of them coming out probably around the same time this one did. We have love triangles and writers waxing on neurotically about love and relationships.

The lead is a writer, a lesbian who is unable to admit her true feelings, and she goes from a break up to a man. He's a philosophy professor who loves everything about her that it doesn't matter that she's a lesbian. In addition to their differences in sexual orientation, there are other love entanglements that get in their way - "with all the twists and turns of a classic Puccini" as the DVD case says. I would agree with that if the twists and turns in Puccini operas are obvious and uninspired with contrived culminations.

I enjoyed the casting, Elizabeth Reaser has a fresh face and isn't your typical romantic comedy lead. I fell in love with Justin Kirk as Andy Botwin in "Weeds" and I fell in love with him again here. The actresses who play her friends actually look like regular friends. But the cast wasn't able to save the characters. We have a lesbian with the prosaic name of Allegra, a writer whose neurotic, and a philosophy professor who pontificated on her vocabulary and the virtues of love and relationships. And none of them had interesting character traits.

The characters, the love triangles and the imperious dialogue were all flat. And the references to Puccini? Allegra likes going to the opera. So does Philip. I think that sums up all the imaginative aspects of "Puccini for Beginners".