When Love Comes

'A sexy movie with music' is promised This modern love yarn does indeed have music, and the odd spot of sex, which doesn't automatically make it 'sexy' - it's cute but pretty enervated. The film's only heartfelt interest is in the doubt and diminished fortitude of its forty-something characters. The three younger cast members provide adrenalin relief mainly. Two of them - riot grrrl bandmates Fig (Brunning) and Sally (Hawthorne) - are used as tousle-haired muppets, full of carefree insouciance; their songwriter pal Mark (O'Gorman), a sex 'n' booze binger, is a placid cliché of a turbulent rebel poet. Moving on, Mark's would-be older lover, Stephen (Prast), is a warm if undistinguished man of means, patiently abiding his love object's agitation. It's his old disco diva pal Katie (Owen) who stirs the story, when she returns home from LA at an impasse in her career. Director and co-writer Maxwell's compassion for his characters is agreeable, but he's soft on their problems and vague, too. It's handsomely rendered; from Auckland to the beach house where everyone ends up, the scenery's there, but the scenario ain't.