Film

Kissing a Fool (1998)

Director: Doug Ellin

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Romantic casualty and first time novelist Jay (Lee) sets up his best friend, ladies' man and TV sportscaster Max (Schwimmer), with his editor Sam (Avital). He won't date her himself, since she knows everything about him from his confessional memoirs ('Here's to You, Bitch Slut'). Sam hates sports, Max hates books, and with sickly sweet rapidity they announce their engagement. Whereupon Max's primitive anxieties surface, and to Jay's horror he asks his friend to put Sam's fidelity to the test. A women's movie for men (it takes up the implications of the two boys' neuroses, while Sam remains the luckless object of their affection), this could have used a shot of the raucous mischief Lee sported as Banky in Chasing Amy. But there's a sense of rising damp as Jay's dilemma rambles on and he falls sick at any sign of trouble. The framing device - Jay's publisher (Hunt) unfolding the narrative at the wedding, as if omniscient matchmaker - is also a distraction.

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