reMedia!

An entertainment blog that pops culture right in the kisser.

Friday, July 21, 2006

film | Kismet, you fool!

Piper Perabo hasn't exactly lived up to the it-girl buzz that surrounded her pert performance in Coyote Ugly six years ago, but she's perfectly fine as a nonplussed newlywed — and even affects a cute English accent — in IMAGINE ME & YOU, a frothy confection from Britain that almost manages to coast on the charms of its appealing cast. It's a shame that the pesky script by director/writer Ol Parker keeps getting in the way.

Perabo's blushing bride Rachel exchanges a serendipitous glance with spunky wedding florist Luce (Gossip's gorgeous Lena Headey) on her walk down the aisle. In the weeks following, Rachel initiates a friendship with Luce, then begins to fancy her new gal pal — who's a full-tilt lesbian, by the way — more than her new hubby (Matthew Goode of Match Point). And therein lies the major roadblock to truly digging Imagine Me & You: The movie insists that these two women are meant for each other, but it doesn't provide any real evidence of the alleged pyrotechnics beyond some tepid flirting at a baseball game and 30 seconds of impromptu smooching in the back of Luce's flower shop. Oh, it wants to tell a story of love at first sight and fated cosmic fireworks and all that stuff that Coldplay sings about, but Rachel comes off flighty and premature as she makes huge decisions with the same consideration she'd give the dollar menu at McDonald's. Meanwhile, her sexual awakening is so absent — yeah, she curiously peeks at chick-on-chick porn, but the scene is used for a comic close-call rather than a moment of legitimate self-discovery — that it practically enforces the misguided notion that you can suddenly decide you're gay because, well, it's kinda trendy these days. Not that that doesn't happen occasionally on MTV's spring-break programming and the Girls Gone Wild video series, but still ...

Oddly, Imagine Me & You turns the jilted husband into its most engaging, sympathetic and complete personality, and Goode delivers his adorably quirky asides ("I like this jam. It's really good jam ... I should make jam") with a sharp, Hugh Grant-ish levity. Also winning: Boo Jackson and Buffy's Anthony Head in the stock supporting roles of, respectively, the cute little sister who's wise beyond her age and the soused dad who smartens up right on schedule for the Big Important Speech. Too bad that the movie seems to merely demonstrate that homosexual romantic comedies can be just as flat and unmemorable as the straight ones. C

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