A Pyromaniac's Love Story

Be warned by the 'once upon a time' opening: this film serves up sugar and ham in a reduced-plot dressing, and has the nerve to call it cute salad. Sergio (Leguizamo) is the pastry boy with the light and fluffy head whose hopeless love for the waitress across the street (Frost) is to be edged towards fruition by the mysterious fire that destroys the cake shop where he works. His fate at the hands of a convoluted plot is exacerbated by a stupidity so infuriating that that you begin to find the very sight of him intensely annoying. Enter the other young lovers. Baldwin, almost overwhelmed by his kook-signifiers (walking stick, beard, overcoat), plays the real pyromaniac, who's burnt down the shop in a fit of pique with his own object of desire. Outrageously overdone, this character arrives far too late to add much interest or shed much light; and by the time Eleniak (the super-rich super-bitch Baldwin's in love with) enters the fray to sort out the nonsense from the rubbish, you're long since ready to wash your hands of the lot of them.