Love & Sex Review

Love & Sex
A relationship challenged journalist struggles to find love.

by Emma Cochrane |
Published on
Release Date:

29 Sep 2000

Running Time:

82 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Love & Sex

Sex sells, or so the saying goes. Slap it in a movie title and you're bound to get a strong turn out. Not to disappoint those still in search of cinematic titillation, but this film has far more to do with love blossoming out of friendship than saucy kit-off antics.

Dialogue is also strongly favoured over action here. Writer/director Valerie Breiman has set up her lead character Kate - a relationship challenged journalist - as a sort of female Woody Allen, given to over-analysis of her life. Consequently, Kate's commentary provides the backdrop to everything that unfolds. But barely are we 20 minutes into the movie, than something happens - namely Jon Favreau. The beefy actor who made a career out of spinning dialogue when he wrote and starred in Swingers, simply knocks Janssen off the screen. As Adam, the one true-love of Kate's life, he has more charisma in his little finger than she has in her entire person.

This may not be wholly Janssen's fault, as Kate's main character trait seems to be that she's an attractive woman who totally undermines her appeal by whining about her pathetic life. She has no close friends, is lousy at her job and yet has a canny habit of picking up dates in public places - an art gallery, a video store. But in this post-Bridget Jones era, this is about par for the course for the modern woman.

So it is left to Favreau to make all the running, since this is essentially a two-handed drama. However, a few of Kate's other beaus do make an appearance along the way -notably Joey, a movie dialogue-quoting, airhead model, and Eric, a man who is simply too good to be true. There's even a nice cameo from Friends' David Schwimmer. But it's Favreau who ends up with the lion's share of good lines, and it's hard to begrudge him them when he has such a winning way with delivery.

Jon Favreau steals the show in this post Bridget Jones era romcom.
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