Better than Chocolate Reviews

The not-so-incredible story of two girls in love. On the day 19-year-old Maggie (Karyn Dwyer) meets new girlfriend Kim (Christina Cox), she also gets a teary phone call from her meddling mother Lila (Wendy Crewson) that turns her life upside down. Lila announces that her second husband has left her for a much younger woman, and she's pulling up stakes and moving, along with Maggie's brother Paul (Kevin Mundy), into the spacious apartment Maggie claims to live in. Maggie suddenly has two big problems: She actually lives out of the back room of the lesbian bookstore where she works, and Lila has no idea that Maggie is gay, or that Kim, who moves in after Maggie finds a quick, convenient sublet, is Maggie's girlfriend. Canadian director Anne Wheeler and screenwriter Peggy Thomson further complicate the screwball set-up with several ancillary plots; by the third act they're juggling no fewer than four story-lines. They include subplots involving pre-op transsexual Judy (Peter Outerbridge), who's desperately in love with Maggie's boss Frances (Ann-Marie MacDonald); and a budding relationship between Paul and Maggie's bisexual coworker, Carla (Marya Delver), the girl who "likes all the chocolates in the box." Aside from a nice performance from Outerbridge, only Lila, a bitter woman whose only consolation in her whole disappointed life comes from downing bon-bons and tormenting her daughter, is really of any interest. And when Lila hooks up with a vibrating marital aid, it becomes clear that Wheeler and writer Peggy Thomson have completely lost their bearings. The absurd denouement — complete with skinheads, a fiery explosion and a fairy-tale ending — is the inevitable wreck on the rocks.