Friends, Lovers & Lunatics Reviews

Romance may not be dead, but it certainly suffers a severe maiming at the hands of this bumbling, boring Canadian production, which features cute, perky Yuppie characters babbling tiresomely about their relationships. Daniel Stern, as the stereotypical Free-spirited Artist, is fired from his job and dumped by his girl friend (Sheila McCarthy) on the same day. McCarthy has taken up with the stereotypical Stuffy Academic (Damir Andrei), and the two head off for a romantic weekend in the country with Stern in "zany" hot pursuit. Along the way, they cross paths with a comical biker/sociopath (Page Fletcher); his kooky, hippie girl friend (Deborah Foreman); and a moronic hick farmer (Elias Koteas). While McCarthy and Andrei shack up in their country cabin, Stern and the others get into a bunch of laboriously wacky complications. It's hard to figure out how so many talented people could have been persuaded to appear in such a dumb movie. The performers (especially Koteas) do as much as they can with their roles, but in the end all are ignominiously defeated by Michael Taav's random, unfunny script, and Stephen Withrow's slack, uninspired direction.