Roger Dodger

'I'm talking about communication!' Indeed, and that's not all this silver-tongued Casanova (Scott) sounds off on. He's pretty persuasive on other topics: the way advertising works, or the inevitable obsolescence of men. He's a (b)ad exec, he's a bar-room sparrer, he's a town sophisti-cat (town in question: Manhattan). That Dodger sobriquet, since you ask, pays tribute to his Houdini touch: no trouble too bad to talk a way out of. Well, up to a point. Joyce (Rossellini), both boss and squeeze, gives New York's Valmont the elbow just as teenage nephew Nick (Eisenberg) pops up and insists on being taught how to get laid. And off they go into the night, Roger's chat-up expertise fraying visibly, and doe-eyed Nick wowing the ladies with his grasp of the essentials. Sounds a little schematic? It is, but there's just enough pace and wit in writer/director Kidd's debut to paper over the cracks.