Avis Metacritic

Kirk and Mol are convincing, easily inhabiting their respective roles.

Fresh Manhattan locations prove as photogenic as the leads, and the supporting actors--especially Tina Benko as a glacial, impeccably dressed amazon--don't miss a beat of Maggenti's snappy dialogue.

Brainy and balmy.

It all looks easy when it's carried off this smoothly. But as any number of stilted duds can attest, applying a Philip Barry or Woody Allen sensibility to 21st-century New Yorkers in their 30s is as delicate a craft as diamond cutting.

While it tips its hat to screwball comedy, Puccini for Beginners owes more to contemporary sitcom. It also has way more in common with "Sex and the City" than "The L Word." None of that is entirely a bad thing in a film that never really soars but has enough breezy humor.

Puccini for Beginners may divide individual audience members. It divided me; rarely have I seen a film simultaneously so good and so bad.

Maggenti is still trapped behind surfaces, enamored of the IDEA of making a buoyant, urbane romantic comedy, while falling short of anything really resonant or personal.

Awkward, unconvincing bisexual roundelay.

There's also precious little chemistry between the players. Only Mol has any charm of which to speak, and, frankly, she deserves much better.

Maggenti suffocates her story with dated references to every buzzword from Laura Mulvey's feminist catalog except for "the male gaze." In short, a nightmare worse than "Trust the Man."