Deception (2008)

Director: Marcel Langenegger

Groucho Marx once said he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have someone like him for a member. And whether it’s the Ya Ya’s, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Little Rascals, or Fight Club, it seems as though Hollywood cinema’s growing increasingly cliquish. Yet, there seems to be something far more taboo about a movie that centers on a sex club. Let Brad Pitt and Edward Norton tear each other to shreds and make soap in Fincher’s film but when your main instigator for a plot is the existence of a sex club, filmmakers tend to get a bit cautious which is why director Marcel Langenegger’s film, initially named The List and then The Tourist ended up with Deception in a hopefully “third time’s the charm” strategy. Yet, as The San Francisco Chronicle noted, "Be wary of movies that change titles. It may mean the filmmakers don't know what they're making."

And in Deception’s case, that’s most likely true. Of course, the subject matter doesn’t help—unlike something as admirable as community service organizations, membership in an elite, secretive, anonymous sex club is not something you’d want to add to the Volunteer Experience section of your resume and most likely something people would want to keep private, much like attending each and every Star Trek Convention as your favorite character or for single girls who’ve always dreamed of a royal princess styled wedding, every so often dropping by boutiques in order to try on bridal gowns when they’re anything but engaged.

Indeed, and more than not wanting to belong to such a depraved club that would have someone like you for a member, it’s probably the same type of club where you wouldn’t exactly want to associate with anyone that would actually be a member as well as most likely neither one would respect the other in the morning. Besides, even if you did go out, you’d both have the dirty goods on each other for the rest of your life. Yet, just like I’ve heard friends and relatives swear they’d never date someone they met at a bar or nightclub, often they end up doing just that as in our hectic lives, proximity is key as it’s difficult to forge new friendships—let alone relationships post-college.

So the sad, lonely account Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) whose temporary work auditing large corporations keeps him always on the go with few personal acquaintances is double the mark when he gets both a new best friend (producer and star Hugh Jackman) and falls for a beguiling blonde (Michelle Williams), also involved in “the list.” Of course, it doesn’t begin that way, although director Langenegger sets the film’s tone with the night time janitorial staff getting more action than our pathetic buttoned up, bespectacled hero before out of the blue he’s chatted up by an affable corporate lawyer named Wyatt (Jackman).

And although they wear identical crisp white shirts and business ties, their backgrounds couldn’t be more different as Wyatt shares his stories of privilege and Jonathan reveals a tragic, blue-collar background, yet it’s McGregor’s character that does most of the talking which owes as much to Jackman’s easygoing demeanor as it does to the social lubricant of marijuana. Having the best time since he’d attended a Van Halen concert as Jonathan girlishly gushes to his new B.F.F., he’s startled when Jackman notes that McGregor had talked for thirty seven minutes straight. Of course, the weed doesn’t do much for Jonathan’s memory of their talk but sensing a like-minded friend, the two begin hanging out, bonding quickly over doubles tennis with perky blondes until Jackman ups the ante by bringing him to a seedy nightclub.

While the meek and easily flustered McGregor, who admits that he’s only slept with four women, confesses that he once dialed an adult phone line but only worked up enough courage to offer professional tax advice on the woman’s new Escalade purchase, he does seem intrigued when he spots a beautiful blonde one night on the subway (Michelle Williams). And after Wyatt has to head to London to take care of a major business deal, he and Jonathan accidentally switch cell phones and it’s only a matter of time for Wyatt’s phone to begin ringing off the hook (if cell phones had hooks) with mysterious calls from women that begin with the question, “Are you free tonight?” Initially hesitant, McGregor follows through and becomes initiated into the group of elite working professionals too busy for a personal life. Eager to help him along the way is Forbes Magazine cover story subject Charlotte Rampling’s down-to-Earth woman who prefers not only “the economics of the arrangement,” but especially the idea of “intimacy without intricacy.” Additionally, it’s she who explains to him how exactly it all works.

The Rules of the List



Suddenly a convert to life on the list and obsessively taking part, Jonathan is thrown for a loop one night when the stranger he meets is none other than the woman he’d noticed at the subway (played by Michelle Williams). Feeling a bit creepy in recognizing someone from the outside world, he proceeds to break all the rules as they order room service and chat over dinner, fall asleep next to one another and go out again the next night. Intriguingly, she doesn’t reciprocate in Jonathan’s over-eagerness to divulge personal information and although the two connect, the lack of knowledge he knows about the woman he simply regards as “S” thanks to a ornament on her handbag becomes an increasingly major problem when she disappears and he’s the last one to see her alive.

With a suspicious detective all too eager to slap the cuffs on Jonathan, he quickly realizes what we have known all along which is to beware of smiling strangers offering candy or whatever version of “candy” that appeals to the Little Red Riding Hood in all of us. Of course, from the moment Jackman’s smooth-talking Wyatt sets foot onscreen, we knew that something was rotten in Denmark, or more precisely Manhattan and anyone who’s seen far superior works in the genre from The Spanish Prisoner to House of Games to Body Heat or Matchstick Men sees the major twist coming within the first ten minutes.

However, much to our annoyance, the purportedly bright Jonathan takes far too long to get a ticket to the clue bus and halfway through the movie I wanted to shout at him to walk into the nearest Blockbuster Video and rent not just the aforementioned films but also the Cinemax styled sleaze-fest Derailed (starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston) as he seemed to have walked right into a blender containing all of these films. While murder enters the equation as does mistaken identity and trickery, the twists never really manage to surprise (of course the film’s ultimate title after the previous two failures serves as a plot spoiling theme) and for a film that advertises itself as erotic, it’s downright icy and roughly as titillating as an episode of Antiques Roadshow.

Theatrical Trailer





While it’s pretty trash,y it may be worth watching just as a fan of the actors which is why I invested my time in it and Jackman shows a nice layer of subtle danger that should be explored in a better film. However, disappointingly McGregor slips in and out of a New York accent and Williams needed far more character development for us to care about her on anything other than a surface level as someone who’s admired her talent since Dawson’s Creek.

The standout of the film is in the cinematography by the legendary Dante Spinotti—an expert at filming noir-inspired night work with a quality distinctly his own (Heat, L.A. Confidential) which makes for a gorgeous widescreen DVD transfer, elevating the film and making it probably far more satisfying as a guilty B movie pleasure DVD than it was on the big screen.

With English, Spanish and French audio tracks and subtitles in both English and Spanish, the disc, recently released in stores, also contains directorial commentary, making of featurettes, additional footage and a T.M.I. (too much info) segment about the existence of actual sex clubs, but ultimately, I have to go back to the legendary Groucho Marx that overall, Deception is one club of which most viewers (including this one) wouldn’t want to become a member.

Greener Mountains

Director:
Lee Shallat Chemel

In Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Legend of 1900, after an abandoned baby is left aboard a great ocean liner, he spends the rest of his life at sea. And although he’s tempted by love, as an adult, “1900” (Tim Roth) finds himself unable to leave the vessel that has become his home. While 1900’s oceanic landscape endlessly changed as the ship moved from port to port and his circumstances were played for melancholic fairy tale like whimsy in Tornatore’s period piece, in four-time Emmy nominated director Lee Shallat Chemel’s feature film debut Greener Mountains, we’re offered a similar set-up but a decidedly sunnier approach.

In Chemel’s contemporary, warmly inviting film, although the equally abandoned child JP Barton (Chris Heuisler) has also lived in the same location where he was discovered and for him the view never changes, after only a few introductory, gorgeously photographed shots, we realize that compared to 1900, he’s living in a far more idyllic situation. Set amidst the breathtakingly picturesque Vermont setting of Barton’s Family Resort, we instantly recall Chemel’s other television credits working in other welcoming communities such as Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow and Northern Exposure’s Cicely, Alaska. After a cinematographic dream of a credit sequence in which any single frame could be pulled out and turned into a postcard, we’re introduced to the now college-aged JP who nearly runs the resort alongside his best friend, caretaker and the only family he’s ever known, Barton’s owner M (Nan Martin) who also narrates the film.

While M’s slightly clichéd narration and the film’s frequent, confusing, and poorly transitioned over-reliance on flashbacks do pull us out of the film at times, it’s such an engaging, appealing, and refreshingly wholesome summer sleeper that those who are willing to overlook the contrivances will find themselves entertained. An ideal family film that seems like a perfect programming choice for a cable family or teen based network, Greener Mountains evolves into a romantic coming of age tale as the sweet-natured JP finds himself questioning his limited existence when the lovely Alice (General Hospital’s Kimberly McCullough) arrives from New York, hoping for artistic inspiration and an escape from a recent breakup.

Naturally, JP is drawn to the young painter but fears that the true details of his life would fail to impress a brainy city girl. So, predictably, especially for the romantic comedy paradigm which lately has favored the mistaken identity plot device, completely head over heels and willing to do anything to win her heart, he proceeds to fabricate an entire back-story about himself, trying to pass as an NYU student specializing in environmental architecture. Enlisting the aid of a friend in giving him a crash course on artistic masterpieces and Manhattan geography, JP and Alice grow much closer but their fledging relationship is threatened with the arrival of his manipulative, scheming, smugly handsome and conceited relative Eric (Brad Raider).

Essentially playing a Rob Lowe type versus Alice’s likable Alyssa Milano-like presence and JP’s easily winning, boyish Jake Gyllenhaal demeanor, we realize it’s only a matter of time before Eric — M’s grandson and JP’s adopted uncle — draws a wedge between the two. And although we sense he’s felt a certain rivalry and jealousy with the adopted and universally preferred and loyal JP, Eric’s true motives are revealed later on as we realize that he’s even more obsessed with the elderly M’s failing health and the future of the resort, which pushes the romance to the back burner as JP realizes not only how much is at stake but must make some tough decisions about his own future and just what he considers to be important in his life.

Respecting the intelligence of the audience who have faced several “lying lovers” and “spoiled schemers” plots, writer Hector Hill and director Chemel enrich what could have been an overly formulaic script by filling out the rest of the cast with some great supporting scene stealers including Christopher Guest alumni Michael Hitchcock as well as a nice parallel between the main story and the resort’s annual production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Despite a small screen feel, Greener Mountains is painterly photographed quality fare from Waterfall Films, which recently made its debut on DVD after earning a Jury Award at the Boston International Film Festival.

Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Director:
Billy Wilder

To borrow an adage my grandfather was fond of repeating, anything can be cured except for a broken heart. Despite this warning, cinema is my favorite prescription for anything that ails. Often, I’ve referred to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours as the perfect antidote to lifting one’s spirits after a horrible date since the film’s poor lead played by Griffin Dunne experiences unspeakably hellish and surprisingly hilarious misunderstandings over the course of one very bad night in New York. Yet another one of my favorite films to cure romantic ills is Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon.

A decidedly cynical yet irresistibly sophisticated romantic comedy—it’s the ideal film for women still weary from the lies told by wooing men-- especially when faced with any of the following on a sliding scale of misdeeds comprised of scoundrels whose eyes follow anything in a skirt even when in the company of another woman, sins of omission regarding men who flirt while neglecting to mention they’re the opposite of single, and worst of all, the revelations of either infidelity or the clichéd but ever-present (especially in this era of Viagra) over-the-hill philandering lothario.

How’s a woman to cope with a constant barrage of calculating manipulation? My remedy is taking great delight and comfort in the lovely, understated performance by Audrey Hepburn as the deceptively naïve, young Parisian girl Ariane Chavasse, who finds herself drawn to a notorious American playboy and decides to beat him at his own game—not through tacky promiscuity but by using intellectual strategy and mental manipulation of her own, taking a cue from right out of her lover’s playbook.

As the daughter of a respected private detective played by the always charming Maurice Chevalier, the motherless, precocious student Ariane finds her imagination working overtime when she’s relegated to practicing her cello in an adjoining room whenever her father discusses his findings with a constant parade of betrayed clients whose spouses have embarked on illicit affairs while making the most of France’s penchant for l’amour. When she learns that Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper), the international jet setting American businessman responsible for most of the marital carnage—not to mention whose dalliances keep her father in business—has become the intended target of an enraged, gun-toting, jealous husband, Ariane embarks on a secretive adventure to intervene in order to save the man’s life, only to lose her heart in the process.

While as far as romantic experience goes, Ariane is definitely a babe in the woods, she’s so familiar with Frank’s dossier that she knows his romantic scorecard by heart yet, much as she tries to prevent becoming ensnared by his smooth, well-rehearsed charms, she finds herself overwhelmed by the attention. And equally, Cooper’s Flannagan becomes utterly fascinated by the nameless waif who intervenes on his behalf, even more so when she refuses to give her name so as not to let Flannagan trace her back to her father’s home, leaving him no choice but to dub the mysterious beauty “Thin Girl.”

Although the two spend an unforgettable day together, as predicted, she’s completely devastated when he must leave Paris, but when he returns much later, Ariane has decided to keep up her mysterious charade by adopting a similarly promiscuous, philandering persona of her own, teasing the much older man with tales of her own “past lovers,” until it’s Flannagan who has ended up even more obsessed with the girl than she had been with him originally.

Intriguingly due to the moral code of the time: While it’s inferred that the two characters whose frequent romantic rendezvous in Flannagan’s Parisian hotel suite and idle dates aboard a boat in the water (in an homage to the impressionist painter Manet; Crowe 144) had been sexual in nature, due to threats from the Catholic church, IMDb reports that Wilder was forced to dub in dialogue indicating the contrary as Cooper is overheard stating, “I can’t get to first base with her” as well as an extra voice-over in the film’s concluding scene.

In an effort to craft his own cinematic version of the “sophisticated wit and style” which led to the term the “Lubitsch Touch,” invented by Wilder’s beloved Ninotchka and Shop Around the Corner writer/director Ernst Lubitsch, he embarked on a tremendously creative collaboration with long time writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond. And as the result of their nearly perfect effort, Love in the Afternoon, the overlooked gem boasts one of Hepburn’s greatest performances in a feminine role that would not only become quintessential to Wilder (she seems like an earlier version of McClaine’s character in The Apartment) but also seems to have had a major influence on writer/director and Wilder devotee Cameron Crowe.

Crowe who cited Jerry Maguire as his own Wilder homage in frequent interviews, seems to have drawn even greater inspiration for his Oscar nominated character Penny Lane (played by Kate Hudson) in Almost Famous from Hepburn’s Thin Girl. In addition, he’s often shared the story of the now late Billy Wilder’s impressed reaction to Hudson’s memorable sequence illustrating Penny’s seriocomic heartache upon learning she was bartered in a poker game scene in Famous, making this parallel seem much stronger if you view Afternoon right before Famous. Additionally, the mutual respect the two share for each other is on excellent display in the nonfiction book I cited earlier, Cameron Crowe’s Conversations With Wilder.

Sadly, although the film always makes me recall the bittersweet and heartrending finale of Thin Girl running alongside Flannagan’s train until he makes the impulsive decision to pull her aboard (one of the most underrated romantic moments in movie history), most of the critical analysis given to the film concerns the staggering age difference from a far too old Cooper and his much, much younger love interest. Ironically, it’s rumored that Cary Grant was Wilder’s first choice for the role but he’d turned the film down because of the age issue himself. And while I do feel the chemistry would’ve benefited from pairing Hepburn with someone a bit younger or who possesses equally fiery intensity (possibly like Gregory Peck whom she sizzled with in Roman Holiday or even—to name two of her other costars—William Holden or Henry Fonda), Cooper does a fine job. In fact, in her autobiography, Hepburn stated that Gary Cooper had lost none of his sex appeal with age. And admittedly, although I do cherish the film, some scenes are a bit cringe-worthy when you realize that Cooper looks—if not as old—than in the same genuine bracket as Chevalier (who portrays her father), which does hinder its believability slightly.

Still, in a way, it makes his performance as Flannagan seem all the more fragile and therefore irresistible when the shy, innocent, yet love-struck Thin Girl manages to beat the manipulative, sneaky, philandering man at his own game by knocking him off his feet, all with the power of a few well chosen words and of course, the incalculable dazzling charisma possessed by Audrey Hepburn herself. Thus in the end, it's the delicate Hepburn and not tough High Noon star Cooper who manages to score one for the heartsick ladies.

For-- as The Beach Boys sang in “I Get Around”-- unless you’re willing to pay the price, “It wouldn’t be right, to leave your best girl home now on Saturday night,” so henceforth, Thin Girl gets around… if only in her imagination and only with the best of intentions. And after all, is there a greater intention than love?

Meet Dave

Director:
Brian Robbins

You know he’s from another planet when you realize that not only is Eddie Murphy’s character in Meet Dave unfamiliar with the maternal fashion adage to never wear white after Labor Day but that if his goal is to remain inconspicuous in contemporary New York, he should never wear a white suit after the 1970’s. Of course, had he worn more suitable attire to avoid what he refers to as his “wardrobe debacle,” then Meet Dave would have lost the precious few jokes that actually work in the opening thirty minutes of Eddie Murphy’s latest cinematic disaster as we find the white-suited character mistaken for the ice cream man by hungry children before learning that he drew inspiration from Mr. Roarke and Tattoo greeting guests with “Da plane! Da plane!” from the 1970’s television series, Fantasy Island.

Why Fantasy Island? Well, it seems it’s the only Earthly transmitted image he could receive in outer space, given the weak signal strength. (And you thought your cell phone reception was bad!) To explain--keeping with the Murphy tradition of playing numerous characters in each of his films, sometimes to marvelous effect (Bowfinger) and downright disastrous (pretty much everything else after 2000), in Meet Dave we learn that Murphy’s primary character is an alien captain leading a space mission to save his planet along with a dedicated crew of very, very little people who are less than two inches tall. However, the catch is that the vessel occupied by the mission’s crew isn’t the typical flying saucer one would expect but a human-sized replica of the Captain himself, giving new meaning to the film’s tag line that we’re watching “Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy.” (Cue the obligatory Keanu Reeves like “whoa!”)

Shortly after the film opens, we follow as Murphy—utilizing a terrifically silent film styled comedic and mime-like approach—tries to assimilate with fellow humans on Earth, forcing his lips into an awkward smile to duplicate the expression of an old woman and mimicking the downright orthopedically nightmarish poses of dummies in a store window. Meanwhile the devoted crew inside his “body” (played by Gabrielle Union, Ed Helms, Kevin Hart, Pat Kilbane, Judah Friedlander, Adam Tomei and others) struggles to keep up with the external chaos while advising his every action. Needless to say the fact that his quest for their planet’s missing orb has landed him directly into one of the busiest, most notoriously aggressive and fast-paced cities isn’t making their job any easier and it’s only a matter of time before he’s knocked over by a motorist named Gina (played by the lovely Heights, Definitely, Maybe, and Invincible star Elizabeth Banks).

Fearing a lawsuit, the bohemian painter and widowed single mother invites the strange Captain up to her apartment for some water, where he not only struggles to pretend to “drink” while inside his ship the crew must deal with a tidal wave of water, but also gets his first chance to practice conversation. Upon realizing he must create a name, on the advice of his adoring girl Friday, Gabrielle Union’s No. 3, he dubs himself Dave Ming Chang before rushing off to rectify the problem of his outdated suit which—by this point—has served as not only a running gag but a plot arc for the undercooked script from surprisingly Yale Drama School educated writers Rob Greenberg (Frasier, How I Met Your Mother) and Bill Corbett (Mystery Science Theatre 3000). Landing at Old Navy, the film’s laughs continue as Dave mistakes the store greeter’s obligatory “Welcome to Old Navy” as a ritualistic statement he uses throughout the film’s most comically successful sequence since Murphy first set foot in New York’s concrete jungle, before—and par for Murphy’s course—the scene and indeed a majority of the rest of the film ends up relying too heavily on juvenile scatological humor.

Unfortunately, it really shouldn’t have been this way as I’d genuinely enjoyed Meet Dave early on, recalling once again the Murphy from my youth who made me laugh until my stomach hurt in the original Beverly Hills Cop. However, as the novelty of the ingenious premise wears off, the film morphs into a seemingly endless, really bad Saturday Night Live styled skit. And far more detrimental to its success, in trying to reach every ticket buying demographic, director Brian Robbins (Norbit) tries to cram in way too much plot, never sure if he wants to structure Meet Dave as a family film, a science fiction movie, or an unlikely romantic comedy as Dave finds himself growing attached to Gina and her young son Josh (newcomer Austyn Lind Myers) all the while realizing that the aptly named No. 3 (Union), is beginning to feel like the ultimate third wheel, caught up in an unrequited love triangle with Dave.

While initially there are enough laughs to amuse Murphy’s most ardent fans, the picture completely derails during the last forty-five minutes when the ship’s crew become affected by their interactions with New York as No. 2’s Ed Helms plans to stage a coup, another turns into a MySpace addict and-- at its most demeaning—one becomes a stereotypically flamboyant gay man worshipping Cher, offering makeovers and snaps at will to the horror of intelligent audience member everywhere.

Since, aside from Dreamgirls and the Shrek series, Eddie Murphy has set the bar so low that it’s now a cliché to even critique him, perhaps (other than its very existence), Meet Dave’s greatest crime is that it completely wastes all of its likable performers including Scott Caan who—although he stars as an X-Files inclined police officer-- seems to have been so uninspired by his role that in his major scene with Murphy in a department interrogation room, he basically does a five minute pitch perfect impersonation of his father James Caan. And while I’d rather sit through Meet Dave again in its entirety than even watch the trailers for Norbit, Pluto Nash, and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Robbins may have been much better off compiling a few of these scenes, along with Murphy’s brilliant beginning, and releasing a disc of short comedic skits instead of serving up a film that would no doubt have been ideal fodder for co-writer Corbett’s Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Although, I guess it could be worse-- if the film had actually been good, it could have caused an ironic trend of men defying the fashion faux pas and digging out those retro white suits so instead of “Da plane! Da plane!” it could have been “Da horror! Da, horror!”

Priceless

Now Available to Own

A habitual check-splitter, I get embarrassed if an insistent but well-meaning man spends too much on me on dinner let alone trying to procure gifts of diamonds, hotel suites and Chanel from my date. Then again, I’m a regular woman living in the real world and not the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn like Audrey Tautou whose gold digging beauty Irene lives in the world of frothy, sun-drenched France in director Pierre Salvadori’s latest infectious hit Priceless.

With his adorable romantic comedy Apres Vous (After You), Salvadori and his co-writer Benoit Graffin gave legendary comedic director Francis Veber (The Closet, The Dinner Game) a run for his money. For Priceless, they even recruited the charming star Gad Elmaleh of Veber’s most recent film The Valet.

As Jean, Elmaleh plays a role similar to the one in The Valet, as the kind, diligent but largely unappreciated employee at a high class hotel with an inability to say “no,” who routinely fills in for others as the seaside resort’s jack of all trades, walking dogs for the ridiculous, wealthy and ridiculously wealthy and serving as the bartender.

While Jean’s life is all about hard work, Irene (Tautou) covets all things luxurious and expensive as the sexy siren hoping to marry her latest sugar daddy but in a predictable and Veber like twist of fate, ends up mistaking Jean for a high roller, tumbling into bed with him until her meal ticket finds out and kicks her to the curb.

One year later and still smitten with Irene, Jean tries to fill the gentleman’s Prada shoes by digging deep into his savings account, pension and then some to keep her in the lifestyle to which she’s accustomed. Unwilling to change her ways, Irene cleans the man out in one painfully memorable scene that finds Jean awakening to the sound of Irene ripping tags off couture each with a price that makes our economic stimulus package seem like earnings from a child’s lemonade stand. Soon, Jean himself finds he’s the target of a wealthy, older female “cougar” and becomes both Irene’s friend and rival as they try to extract as many gifts as possible from their… ahem, benefactors.

Although we all know just who will end up with whom before the final credits roll, watching the two charismatic leads and their millionaire lovers volley back and forth like pairs in doubles tennis is pure bliss. More importantly, Priceless serves as further proof of not only Salvadori’s directorial skill in the genre but more so in the wake of too many by-the-numbers American rom-coms, that much like Chanel perfume, nobody does sophisticated, irresistible romance like the French.

Falling For Grace

Original Title:
East Broadway

Director:
Fay Ann Lee

As a child she was shunned from the cool cliques due to her fate as the self-described “nerdiest girl in PS 1” and unhappily saddled with the name Yip-Han as the first generation American-raised daughter of two South Chinese immigrants. Yet the young heroine of Falling For Grace begins to assert her independence firstly when she controls the checkbook as the only English speaker in her home and secondly when she discovers the lovely Grace Kelly on television.

Thus she reinvents herself to become something quite close to the Philadelphia socialite turned princess as an adult. Quickly we meet up with Yip-Han 2.0, now renamed Grace Tang (Fay Ann Lee) as she continues to dutifully look after her beloved parents with subzero refrigerators and cell phones they’re unable to use. Likewise, perhaps culling from her checkbook balancing childhood, she’s since become a successful investment banker in a top Wall Street firm where she and her best friend/coworker Janie (Margaret Cho) try to maneuver their way through the male dominated concrete jungle.

Still intrigued by high society in her Grace Kelly inspired quest, the perpetually Coke drinking and Dunkin’ Donuts eating adorable Grace crams for a cocktail party mixer to impress the well-to-do blue bloods and become a member on the Metropolitan Opera Junior Committee by having her good friend and cabbie quiz her on opera trivia.

However, any attempt to impress with musical knowledge is long forgotten when her name is overheard and our bubbly heroine is mistaken for well-known but illusive designer Grace Tang whose Manhattan boutique Shanghai Tang has become as coveted as Marc Jacobs to the very women with whom she’s hoping to get acquainted.

Caught up in their fawning and admiration, their mistake is never corrected at the party and before Grace’s mistaken identity can be rectified, she is later stopped on the street by one of the women’s fiancés she’d met during the mixer, Andrew Barrington Jr. (Gale Harold).

As the handsome New York golden boy, Andrew forgoes his parent’s wishes to live a life of class and privilege by trying to make a name for himself crusading on behalf of the mistreated sweat shop workers in Chinatown in his position in New York’s attorney general’s office. And upon seeing our heroine a second time, he takes an immediate interest in Grace and their tangible chemistry grows considerably as they become tentative friends before romance enters the equation.

While admittedly the film was creatively influenced by her love of romantic comedies such as The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Pretty Woman and Working Girl, theatre and television star Lee jokingly told Phoenix Film Festival audiences her initial inspiration was “lack of work." After she'd had great success starring in Broadway’s Miss Saigon before being relegated to roles such as maids and nurses in television, Lee ultimately decided that since nobody was writing for Asian American females, she would do so herself.

Referencing the recurring theme from the aforementioned comedies she enjoyed of “underdogs trying to find acceptance in a world where they don’t quite fit in,” Lee’s production notes continued by invoking Working Girl, noting, "There were simply no Asian Tess McGills in our cinematic catalogue that I can think of. So, when I decided to pen my first screenplay, I wanted to create the Asian 'Tess.'"

The film, which took four years to raise enough money to produce, went through numerous versions that originated with a first draft of the delightful and winning script penned by first time filmmaker and the film’s star Fay Ann Lee, which was written ten years earlier by Lee in a screenwriting class. Later, guided by her own instincts as well as those of her talented mentor Jim Taylor (Sideways), she rewrote more than seventy pages before final production.

Featuring a terrific performance by Christine Baranski as Andrew’s overbearing mother, which seems to provide further proof that Baranski has cornered the market in playing uptight WASPs married to men who tie sweaters around their necks, Lee's film is also strengthened by the rest of its stellar cast. In deciding to make the Asian family in the story as authentic as possible to try to bring something new to the romantic comedy format, Lee cast actors who all spoke the same dialect to heighten the familial intimacy.

While some critics have likened Falling For Grace to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and admittedly, it does at times feel like a predictable yet sunny hodgepodge of several romantic comedy plots, I greatly admired Lee’s choice in Grace to, unlike the family in Greek Wedding, honor her family by presenting audiences with one that undeniably loves and fights for one another as opposed to just dishing up one sitcom ready one-liner after another that makes fun of the family’s ethnicity instead of embracing it.

Lee’s affection for her characters definitely shines through and it’s the little details in their relationships and the terrific stars including Elizabeth Sung (as her mother), Clem Chug (as her father) and the charismatic Shanghai Kiss star Ken Leung as her brother that help move the plot along even though we ultimately know where it’s headed.

The type of feel-great romantic comedy we need this spring after months of dark plots filled with vengeance and blood, Falling For Grace, which opens soon in limited theatrical release here in Arizona at the renowned Camelview 5 Harkins Theatre, seems destined for word-of-mouth success as it’s the kind of movie you’ll immediately want to recommend to others. Perhaps more importantly, it's another fine example of women wearing numerous hats as directors, writers, producers and stars to bring their cinematically independent visions to life.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Director: Bharat Nalluri

With arguably her best written role since her Oscar nominated character penned by Cameron Crowe in Almost Famous, talented actress Frances McDormand has a chance to show off her funny, passionate and protective side in this richly intelligent and fun offering that, like Famous, surprisingly had nothing to do with her multitalented husband Joel and brother-in-law Ethan Coen.

Based on Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day stars McDormand as the unlucky and hardworking title character Guinevere Pettigrew who finds herself out of yet another job as a governess in pre World War II 1939 London. In an act of desperation, she picks up on a lead for employment in the home of Delysia Lafosse (a terrific Amy Adams) and soon realizes that instead of work as a governess, she has found herself the new social secretary for the American singer hoping for her big break. Needing Pettigrew to navigate her romantic life which is growing increasingly complicated by her entanglements with three very different men all with something enticing to offer such as employment, a big break and true love, Delysia bonds instantly with her new friend and the two women embark on a day filled with adventure, misunderstanding and great fun for the audience.

A delightful and old-fashioned work that feels like an Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward play, Pettigrew is not only photographed in rich colors of the period with set and costume design eye candy but also contains a plethora of performances that seem modeled after the screen stars of the 30’s, especially in the case of the fast talking, charming Adams who reminds viewers of Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert. With a witty script by David Magee (Finding Neverland) and Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) and further evidence of the versatility of McDormand and Adams along with a star-making supporting turn from Lee Pace (who looks like Clive Owen’s adorable younger brother), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day may take place over a breakneck twenty-four hour period but pulls viewers along with the cast from stop to stop, never overstaying its welcome and continually leaving us with a smile on our face, just like the perfect companion.