Fratelli, amori e tanti guai

Unfortunately, the film is the mud as well as the gem. Two perfect beauties, two usually miscast actors in roles that befit them, a rather original script... it all should have gone great. However, the overall directing of the movie is superficial, most of the support actors play badly and the script oscillates between very good and very bad.

The idea of the movie was nice, the overall setup, but the ending just blew and the hysterical explosions of badly acted emotion over badly written lines were like giants craters in the road to liking the film.

Bottom line: if you are looking for a romantic comedy, this at least has some brain and a definite direction away from stereotypes, even if it doesn't avoid them all. But the quality of it isn't great.

Sure, there are a lot of things in "Gray Matters" that don't make sense. Some of the casting is slightly off, sometimes the characters slip into dialogue that seems to be cribbed from an after school special, sometimes the characters conveniently forget things just for the sake of moving the plot along. However, despite the obvious missteps, "Gray Matters", in the end, remains watchable and entertaining.

The film begins the way a lot of romantic comedies begin - with dancing. Sam and Gray waltz around a New York City loft, easily imitating scenes from their shared love of 1940's musicals. They seem the perfect couple - if only they weren't related... and therein lies the, yes, I'll admit - thin and silly premise upon which the film is based. You see, Sam and Gray are best friends and siblings. They grew up together, they live together, they speak in dialogue reminiscent of screwball comedies (or Lorelai and Rory from "Gilmore Girls", if that's the reference you prefer). Enter Bridget Moynahan as Charlie, the love interest they are about to share, to shake up their entire relationship and Gray's entire world. A wacky love triangle ensues, as do many, many romantic comedy clichés, made all the more clear by Molly Shannon as Gray's kooky best friend.

Misunderstandings and secrets abound as Gray starts to figure out who she really is, Charlie doesn't have a clue about anything, and Sam grows increasingly nervous. Despite all the silliness and illogical plot transitions, though, "Gray Matters" is, at its heart, a sweet, positive coming out movie. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to believe Heather Graham as a woman questioning her sexuality, it's easy to relate to her realization and subsequent meltdown, and the film takes just the right tone. The film has just enough exuberance to help you get over the illogical ending, too.

Granted, "Kissing Jessica Stein" does what this film attempts to do so much better, but nonetheless, "Gray Matters" is entertaining and fun.

Saw this with my brother, whom I hang out with often, too, so you can say that we could sort of relate with the movie (except the part where Gray is gay, though ;o))!

Gray (Heather Graham of The Guru, Boogie Nights) and Sam (Tom Cavanagh of Ed) are siblings who are so close that people think they are an item. They meet a beautiful zoologist Charlie (Bridget Moynahan) in a dog park and the three of them hit it off. Sam and Charlie's whirlwind romance gets them hitched, but matters get complicated when Gray and Charlie share a passionate kiss.

Graham still looks cute as a button despite being in her mid-thirties, but she looks like she's trying too hard in the acting department. It's as if she's trying to be a Cameron Diaz/Sandra Bullock but it's just not translating well on screen. But it is not all her fault; the editing could've been so much tighter, with the dialogue delivery less stilted.

While it is also unbelievable that thirtysomethings in this day and age still memorize the forties' dance routines of Fred and Ginger Astaire, it was nice to see the dance sequences of Gray and Sam, and of Gray and Charlie. Amazing how graceful the girls could be!

Alan Cumming as the Scottish cabbie was incredibly weird. I kept expecting him to turn into the X-Men's creepy Nightcrawler (was I the only one who thought this??). But he was funny dressed in drag, nonetheless.

All in all, this film felt like a long sitcom episode. Only Molly Shannon, ever the comic pro, who plays Gray's crazy officemate, delivered all the punchlines effortlessly and efficiently.

While watching "Gray Matters" - which marks the film-making debut of writer/director Sue Kramer - I kept wondering if maybe I hadn't somehow stumbled back into "Puccini for Beginners," a movie I'd seen a few weeks earlier, since both are oddly similar, equally implausible tales of Manhattan yuppies involved in romantic triangles of the bisexual kind.

Gray and Sam are siblings who not only live in the same apartment and spend most of their free time together but are so emotionally attached to one another that people often mistake them for a romantic couple. As if that weren't queasy enough, the screenplay ups the ante by having the hitherto heterosexual Gray suddenly "discover" she's a lesbian when she falls for Sam's gorgeous new wife, Charlie (yes, I know all this can be a bit confusing, but Charlie is a woman).

As with "Puccini," most of what happens in "Gray Matters" feels contrived and artificial. We don't believe for a second that two seemingly rational people like Sam and Charlie would become engaged after only a single date, or that even an indecisive ditz like Gray would be this in-the-dark about her own sexuality.

Thus, with so little of the storyline grounded in anything even closely resembling reality, we find ourselves detached from the characters and indifferent to their fates. That's no denigration of the lead players - Heather Graham, Thomas Cavanaugh and Bridget Monahan - all of whom are appealing and likable in their various roles. And there are some sharp supporting performances by Molly Shannon, Alan Cumming, and Sissy Spacek as Gray's loopy therapist (though there is a brief cameo appearance by singer Gloria Gaynor that is pure unadulterated pandering). Moreover, New York City looks all sparkly and shiny as seen through the lens of cinematographer John S. Bartley's camera.

With its countless references to 40's musicals and romantic comedies, "Gray Matters" clearly sees itself as both an homage and a throwback to the metier and style of those earlier films. But we are obviously living in different times, and the labored setups and screwball comedy devices that worked so well in the past feel pretty darned anachronistic and forced when employed today. My feeling is that if you're going to make a modern romantic comedy, one that deals with such "contemporary" issues as coming out and sexual identity, then make a movie that actually feels modern. Don't try to tuck it safely away in the past, then expect us to take any of it seriously. Despite it's taking on those relatively gutsy issues, "Gray Matters" really doesn't exist in anyone's world, and certainly not in the racially and economically diverse world of 21st Century Manhattan.

"Gray Matters" presents us with life as only those in the movies ever really live it.

I don't know why so many people seem to hate this movie; from the reviews, it seems they had no idea of what it was about before they watched it. As far as movies having to be 'believable', well, that isn't really what most cinema is about, now, is it. No one dances spontaneously like it's choreographed; spaceships don't travel past the speed of light; martial artists don't get to fight a whole crowd of opponents one at a time. So reality isn't what we're really after here, now is it? No. What we want is to go to a movie and feel good when we come out. And that's exactly what this film does, unless you can't stand the idea of a beautiful woman being gay and being happy. Which is what I suspect so many of the people who wrote the damning reviews feel. That said, well, I can't really comment on how good or bad the acting is; I can't really tell the difference between merely average or good acting, and great acting. But I can tell bad acting (think Chuck Norris in pretty much anything; nice guy, great martial artist, terrible actor), and this wasn't bad at all. In fact, I enjoyed every moment. I rate a movie on whether I will watch it again (I will), and how many times I want to hit the pause button to do something else, and I didn't stop the movie at all. Nine out of ten stars.