Mr. Jealousy

Mr. Jealousy while not everyman, is certainly a typical kind of man, especially in today's world of endlessly mixed sexual signals. So convincingly, poignantly, and sympathetically portrayed here by Eric Stoltz, Mr Jealousy hardly allows us to ignore our own (mister's) part in his makeup. We love his humor and sense his pain too.

I think it is the wonderful restraint and a great complementary cast that helps bring this home to us. One can fully relax (no squirming, trust me) with the manner and content of this comedy, which makes this film a kind of gem, I think. And the therapy scenes deserve special notice. The opening may be a bit thin, and the ending both thin and forced, but the body is of a different terrain, a bittersweet movie unto itself. (someone think of a better ending!)

MR. JEALOUSY doesn't aspire to greatness; just a small, quirky, romantic comedy. To this end it succeeds. Set in Manhattan, Eric Stoltz plays a young thirty-something wannabe writer earning a living as a substitute teacher. Annabella Sciorra plays his girlfriend, and they are falling in love with one another. Eric's problem is that he is pathologically jealous and is being eaten away by thoughts of one of her earlier lovers who is now a successful writer. So obsessed is Eric that he joins the ex-boyfriend's group therapy session under the guise of his best friend. And far from being irate, the friend begins to dig on this, receiving therapy vicariously through Eric.

Of course the whole shebang unravels and...well that's the movie. As far as 'date' movies go, this is better than most and is heartily recommended for the guys when the lady wants this kind of movie brought home.

"Mr. Jealousy" is a somewhat tedious heavily narrated Woody Allen-esque intellectual musing of relationship issues, specifically jealousy, with a NYC Gen-X milieu. A romantic-comedy tale of a tentative Stoltz's affair with a too experienced Sciorra, this emotionally sterile and somewhat heady flick is not likely to evoke more than an occasional chuckle nor milk a single tear nor give anyone the warm and fuzzies. Okay stuff for those into microscopic examinations of relationships though not likely to have broad appeal. (C+)

Aside from a thoroughly misrepresentative title, "Mr. Jealousy" is actually quite entertaining. With good acting, a good story, and the brand of direction one only gets from the writer, the film is a genuinely charming romantic comedy. The humor is subtle and the dialogue poetic, but if you like that kind of thing (think "Royal Tenenbaums" meets "Kissing Jessica Stein," with most emphasis on the Stein) you should rent it. It's esoteric, but if you get it you'll like it.

A film about relations; you may think: Oh no not an another one, not a Woody Allen remake. Wrong, this is a screwball comedy like the films with Cary Grant en Katherine Hepburn. Makes group therapy slightly ridiculous. Stoltz is great as the jealous lover, obsessed with the past of his present girlfriend.