The Pompatus of Love

This movie is a victim of the post-"Diner" post-"Seinfeld" syndrome, in which inane conversation takes the place of true characterization. It's amusing at times, but ultimately leads nowhere - both the conversations and the movie. The Adrian Pasdar / Mia Sara / Paige Turco storyline was perhaps the most entertaining and had the most potential, but a movie like this is only as good as the worst bit of it. And everything about the Jon Cryer story is horrible - it should have been left out or at least given fourth place (instead of the most followed) subplot.

It's entertaining in its own way, I suppose. And it gets points for being funny and for some clever referencing of 50s and 60s TV shows. Watch "The Brothers McMullen" instead for a similar movie done better with less money.

I saw this when it first was released on video, and now, 5 years later, got to watch it again from a different perspective.

Character development - there's not much with the exception of Josh.

Plot - sort of vague, it goes from one situation to the next with aside comments and monologues spliced together and thrown in just for fun and transition.

So what is it about? Very simply put - the differences between men and women and how difficult they can be to understand.

Why this title? No clue. But it sort of makes sense; how many people over the years have understood that Steve Miller was saying "the pompatus of love", and if they understood it, how many knew what the heck he meant by it?? Exactly! But the song was still a big hit. It sounds cool and is a blast to sing along with. Men and women, despite all the griping, jokes, cliches and misunderstandings between the two genders, still keep getting together and, hopefully, can make it through life with their sanity, intelligence and love intact.

There is no pat answer with which to end this movie. Life doesn't have any either. I'm not one for vague endings. I usually prefer to have a Hollywood Happy Ending. But this works for me for some reason. There's no blinding vision of how one must change to be able to live happily ever after with the object of one's affection. It's just an acceptance that there are differences. Maybe not understood, but now one knows that they are there and can work with them; or around them; or whatever it may take.

It's a good look at relationships for the over 21 crowd. It's a good movie.

The movie has no great insights, and the style is somewhat derivative, but the performances are pretty good, and it is watchable. My primary complaint is that the best character in the movie is a woman that appears in the last half and gets relatively little screen time even after that. The movie Swingers has a similar subject, and is much better.

This movie seems sort of like the pilot for an unusually clever sitcom; the dialog is often very entertaining, but its character development is very weak, bordering on nonexistent. Thus, the movie feels like a collection of amusing but unrelated incidents that don't really lead anywhere or to anything. The ending seems more like just a convenient stopping point where very little has been resolved, so it provides little feeling of resolution. I was not bored while watching it, but I'm glad I didn't pay $7.00 to do so.

Overall Rating: 6 (out of 10), or 2 1/2 stars (out of 4)