Amour sous influence

This is a slushie, a moving Mills & Boone. You could just as easily call it moving wallpaper. It passes a couple of hours and it doesn't offend anyone. Jenny Seagrove acts woodenly, a Lada of femmes-fatales, while Anthony Edwards strolls through the film in an apologetic decaffeinated sort of a way, looking out-of-synch with his English surroundings and upper middle class hinglish. He delivers such an uncommanding screen presence in this big-screen film that I question his wisdom in giving up his day job on Channel 4's "ER".

"Us Begins with You" is the American title. Quite clever, eh? For a moment or so. The British title is better. But it too means nothing, and tells you even less about the film. So what's it all about? Jenny Seagrove is a widow running her husband's gardening business. She's happy with her widowhood, keeps busy with the family gardening business and isn't looking for a replacement hubby. Young son is unhappy, misses dad, is under-achieving at boarding school. Jenny's friends are trying to fix her up with a fella in the shape of Charles Dance, a dentist. He does the dirty by hypnotising her in his dentists chair, aiming to make her receptive to his charms. Coincidence, and film scrptwriters, get in the way of his evil plans. Up turns Anthony Edwards, sports psychologist, who has just lost his job training Linford Christie. Honest! Can it get any worse? You betcha.

The film lasts just under two hours. Surprisingly, I wasn't bored by it. There are a few funny moments and some effective one-liners. Linda Bellingham is as delicious as ever and, along with Tom Conti, steals scenes and demonstrates to the others how it can be done. I was all the while bemused that so much effort could go into making a film that has so little impact and one which will leave no ripples in that sea of celluloid that flows our way from the distributors. No Oscars here. The ladies in the audience loved it and giggled at the naughty bits such as when the backdrop to a conversation was a diagram of female reproductive organs. Such subtlety. And these same women obligingly shed a tear in auto-response to the director's synthetic massaging of the audience's emotions. I cried too but for a different reason. Four out of ten.

C U James

This is a very funny romantic comedy which works because Jenny Seagrove musters her whimsicality and shows that she is an excellent comedienne with perfect comic timing. She plays a widow whose husband has died 18 months earlier unexpectedly of a heart attack, leaving her and her children bereft and bewildered. She is a very attractive woman, and her lecherous dentist, played by Charles Dance, has designs upon her. Instead of injections, he uses hypnosis on his dental patients. In Seagrove's case, he goes beyond dentistry and while she is 'under' he makes increasingly naughty suggestions to her to assist him in his dastardly plans to seduce her and marry her. Anyone who does not believe that things like this can happen has only to read the book OPEN TO SUGGESTION, where many cases of such abuses are described. But back to the film. This hypnotic manipulation has some comic moments. At one point, while Seagrove is in the dental chair in a state of trance and Dance is called out suddenly, leaving the radio on, she accepts hypnotic instructions from a radio announcer, with comic consequences. Seagrove has mastered a wonderfully 'dipsy' expression which makes her hypnotically motivated adventures come across as hilarious. The man who is in love with her is played by an American actor named Anthony Edwards, who had just appeared in a successful American comedy called PLAYING BY HEART (1998). This light and enjoyable confection was directed by Willi Patterson, a TV drama director who had directed Charles Dance 11 years earlier in a TV movie spy drama, OUT OF THE SHADOWS (1988). For some reason, Patterson ceased being a director after this film and since 1999 has done nothing else in the film or TV business which is recorded on IMDb. He had a light touch which was very suited to gentle comedy, and this film works very well.

I am not fan of romantic comedies. but "Do not go breaking my heart" is more than a romantic comedy. it is a smart, seductive, little bitter, refreshing, generous, sensitive, touching and example of beautiful humor film. remembering Woody Allen films, it has, as the first virtue, the right cast. Jenny Seagrove escapes from the frame of Barbara Taylor Bradford adaptations and gives a great character. Anthony Edwards is far by other roles - the mark of ER is the most heavy - for do the ordinary guy who becomes the best choice for a single mother. and Charles Dance is the inspired choice for a role who represents the basic spice of story. a soup for soul is one of good definitions for this film. and that could be a virtue . because, among the films from the same genre, it is not only different but real charming.

This is an appallingly dull film which I guess is why they spent so much effort choosing different titles that might help to market it better on either side of the Atlantic.

I wish they'd never bothered.

Nobody likes seeing middle aged lecherous men getting randy and this is exactly what it divulges in. The direction is stilted and mundane and the script is truly awful. Pure cheese. This is the worst British romantic comedy I have ever seen. If this is all that we (I am British) can offer then we'd better stick to drama or otherwise put money into buying good scripts. A load of rubbish.

A really well made British film with a thoughtful storyline,and a fine cast. Good to see that fine actress Jenny Seagrove in a role well suited to her and played to perfection........wish she were my mum, but I'm too old. One of those rare movies of today that end making the viewer feel inspired and genuinely happy.