Overworked Manhattan coffee shop waitress Bella isn't looking forward to her 35th birthday. Stuck in a relationship with a married man for far too long, Bella takes a chance on frustrated novelist/taxi driver Bruno. Determ... more »ined not to scare yet another man off with her dreams of marriage and family, Bella plays it cool and tells Bruno she hates children. A tough break for the womanizer since his ex-wife has just dumped two small children on him ... In her coffee shop world, Bella witnesses she's not alone in the bittersweet battle against romance's difficulties. Shy widower Paul struggles through the tender courtship of lively widow Emily. Ornery old Seymour gets a magical shot of youth when he falls for a sexy exotic dancer. Despite love's accompanying twists and turns, everyone holds out for the best. And the persistent Bella discovers fairy tales can come true...even in New York City.« less
I found it kind of strange... and not in a good way..
Diane Moore | 06/27/2001
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Normally, i like these kinds of movies, multiple characters who are all very different and weird or out there.. but I don't know.. i guess i never really got into this film completely. First of all, I could never get past the looks of the main character. Normally, Im sort of sickened by those movies who have to have a beautiful heroine--and i don't know if Bella was supposed to be beautiful or not. She looked as if she was LA beautiful, but not really. She basically looked like a walking plastic surgery patient. Full blown lips, she must have had a face lift (it was distracting cause it looked like she had a difficult time talking) really skinny, really tall, with inflated breasts. I didn't understand, but her looks were distracting to me..Another thing was that the May/December relationships in the movie were all over the place. I don't disagree with them, and i don't deny that they are out there, but it seems that's all there were! Bella was involved in an older married man, her boyfriend was sleeping with a 65 year old woman, and a regular at the diner started dating a dancer half his age.. I guess it would have made more sense to me if they had relationships across the map, not just older/younger ones.I saw it in the LA weekly and there was a quote saying "What Friends would be like if they really lived in New York" I don't know about that.. it wasn't hilariously funny and the characters weren't ones that you fell in love with. It jumped around too much and some scenes had no point to them. Like when Bella undresses talking on the phone to her mother and a young boy stands outside watching her. It could have done just as well with her on the phone. I guess what im saying is that certain scenes didn't really go anywhere. But, there was some light humor and interesting parts.. maybe just wait for the rental?"
Sparkling
D. KASRIEL | London, UK | 07/31/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"... I have to write about this glorious film as the average rating is way below acceptable. I saw it twice in one week, living in Greece this spring. This is an unusual, refreshing film about Bella, an unusual mid-30's NY woman, who refuses to live typically and a whole set of Big Apple characters she interacts with who share her life and her free spirit. How can you not adore a woman who throws her perfumed just-out-of-the-tub lush towels out the window to tantalize and warm the hobos under her apartment, a woman who still cares for her unkind older lover whom the camera has no sympathy for, and who herself has an elegant compassion for the colourful characters she waits on in her diner workplace or who interact with them? These include the exhibitionist peep show intellectual, the older guy with the shyness of an adolescent, as well as the taxi driver/closet writer and young father who is overawed by Bella's unique outlook and femininity, and you should be itching to know about the fantastical 5-D fairy tale outcome to a chance confrontation in the heroine's NY life. I can't wait for the video...when's it coming out?"
Wooden, 2-Dimensional and Slow
Kerry A. Lorette | Kent Town, South Australia Australia | 05/06/2003
(2 out of 5 stars)
"This movie was filled with stereotypes and characters that just didn't make me care. The editing was self-indulgent and slow and there were several scenes that should have ended up on the cutting room floor. It is an uncomfortable movie with little warmth and an overdose of angst. The quirks that they tried to work in for the characters to make them human were very contrived and made me conscious I was watching a movie rather than allowing me to get involved in the story and characters as people. The actors did their best - but couldn't overcome the flaws in directing, editing and story line."
Pleasantly surprised.
Hunter B. Williams | Seattle, WA USA | 06/24/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I hadn't read anything about this movie, and only went after I walked out of Amores Perros and needed another movie to see. The name is the worst thing about this movie. It's well acted and whenever it is in danger of getting schmalzy, it picks right up with some off-beat humor. The movie does a great job of developing many characters, and I really liked all of them."
Age Over Youth
R. A Rubin | Eastern, PA United States | 03/31/2005
(3 out of 5 stars)
"At first, Anna Thomson's botox lips, nose job, and silicone distracted me. I notice that this look is big in Hollywood, the bee stung lips of so many movie stars, their big boobs on a starved stick of a body makes the young guys pant, but the girls can't possibly match the impossible can they? Anna is an educated woman that has rejected Wall Street to work as a waitress in a diner. She's 35 and her mom's applying the pressure. Her Broadway paramour, a married man has strung her along since she was 23. Enter Jamie Harris, starving taxicab driving, failed novelist. Suddenly ex-wife dumps Jamie's kid plus one on him. Naturally through a series of unlikely big city moments, Anna and Jamie hook up, lose each other, and love.
Then there's the autumn autumn match of still spry, 70 year old Robert Modica and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, ex-Woodie Allen wife Louise Lasser. This relationship of seasoned citizens so rare in film took the show away from the yougen's. We cared whether or not sweet, only had sex with someone he loved, Modica can get it up for willing Lasser. We hoped the drugstore was stocked with Viagara.
The screenplay offered some silly city shtick to be New York City hip, but these scenes fall flat. Nevertheless, this one, the babe and I enjoyed.