Simply Irresistible

A brain-numbing romantic vehicle aimed at adolescents and presumably manufactured to exploit Gellar's strange mix of naivety, assertiveness and self-possession. Nevertheless, it's offensive that the film-makers deem to ignore all considerations of pace, development, plausibility or multi-dimensionality. Food as a metaphor for sex and seduction is as old as the movies, as is the use of magic for empowerment, but rarely has either been used so obviously as here. Gellar plays chirpy Amanda, whose family's Manhattan restaurant is on the slide; she's determined to save it, despite her lack of cooking skills. No matter, a pail of crabs wink at her from a fish stall, and a stranger (Durang) makes an angelic magical intervention, and her powers are transformed. That's it: a one-way ticket to Happyville. The movie drifts through on a dreamy cloud of wish-fulfilment, its escapist materialism emphasised by the art direction and whimsical score.