Milk & Money

thin senseless plot, poor acting, minimal inter-actor chemistry, and unfortunately timed and ill-written comedic lines. The script is quirky but ultimately unsuccessful. This movie suffered from either being not realistic enough, or not absurd enough... a step in either direction would have been an improvement.

I watched Milk and Money one lazy Sunday afternoon. During the entire film, I kept telling myself I had other things to do -- but I just couldn't turn it off. Milk and Money is offbeat and quirky, but cute and rather humorous throughout. Calista Flockhart is beguiling. Denise Faye is extremely sexy -- and Dina Merrill is a legendary supporting actress. Together, they are the primary women surrounding the main character, David. Milk and Money is not worth the ticket price at a movie theatre, but I would watch again on another lazy Sunday afternoon.

David drops out of medical school with one year to go, and suddenly he's a magnet for beautiful women behaving mysteriously. The one thing we expect most from a film is subverted: the protagonist encounters no challenging obstacles nor struggles to overcome (except perhaps his own bewilderment at how things keep working out). I don't care for straightforward comedies, and the movie has the perfect amount of absurdity and off-kilter dialogue to make me laugh while still telling a coherent story. These things seem to be the main complaints others have about it, and yet they're exactly what make it so unique and make me love it so much.

After quitting school, David orders a hot dog plain and the vendor guides him to have all the toppings. From then on his life is barely in his control and he just goes with it until he finds the life he seems to be looking for. A bookstore clerk reveals having dropped out of medical school three years earlier and experiencing similar luck in meeting women, suggesting it may be some sort of "cosmic consolation prize". In real life we may encounter rare moments of serendipity, but the funny and fantastical trajectory of David's fate shows us a whole world of such possibilities that we can only dream of.

As a romcom, Milk & Money is unusual for predominantly being a male's fantasy (without resorting to vulgar 'sex comedy'), but at least it's not entirely one sided. Anyway, to me it's as much about the bigger picture of whimsical, starry-eyed fate and embracing enjoyment of the universe. It's a delight to watch it unfold. The thought that some viewers resent a fictional character who finds success without effort only makes the film's subversion even funnier.

The film is also noteworthy for being the only one of my all-time top 10 movies that doesn't feature death/violence/gore. I guess peaceful wackiness is difficult to do well!

David (Robert Petkoff) decides to leave medical school. As he explains, he had been studying to preserve lives without knowing why life is worth saving. As he is walking back home, he runs into a bevy of women who throw themselves at him. One wants him to help her write a movie, another has a mysterious box she wants him to keep for her, and so forth. After these encounters, David continues on through a journey of elevators, cows, wills, Central Park, and overnight guests. How does a story untangle itself?

This is an offbeat film with a capacity to charm and produce chuckles. Petkoff smiles throughout the strange happenings surrounding him and Calista Flockhart is engaging in a smaller role as the love interest. The setting in NYC is always a welcome one, too, while the costumes are well conceived. Fans of the routine romcom will delight in this atypical variation of the norm. Others who seek an independent film with a bit of pizazz may want to take a chance with this one, too.

A young man (Robert Petkoff) impulsively quits medical school and immediately finds himself involved with a number of attractive women, all of whom want strange things from him (like holding onto a box for weeks and never looking inside it).

Along the way he meets up with various eccentric characters, the most fun being the late, great Peter Boyle's charming homeless man/ex-cowboy.

This is the kind of whimsical film that might have found more acceptance if it had been made in France and shown with subtitles. We seem to have more patience for foreign films that trade in smiles and light-hearted ,slightly absurd romantic tangles, with sexually aggressive, quirky and lovable women who may be inscrutable, but who are no less endearing for being so.

This is not a film that will change your life, but it is one you may very well enjoy.