FilmBlather.com

"I didn't date much. I was shy. And oogly."

Little Black Book opens with a quote from trusty William Shakespeare; "Hell is empty. All the devils are here," it insists. Well, I thought, if the flick has the chutzpah to start quoting the Bard right from the get-go, perhaps I'm not in for as tortuous an experience as I was expecting. "All the devils are here." Hmm. How 'bout that?

I was half-right, in any case. Little Black Book at least seems like it's interested in dabbling in some moderately serious issues -- honesty in relationships, the idea of being in control of one's life, and even entertainment industry ethics for good measure. Lofty goals, these; unfortunately, the screenplay by Melissa Carter and Elisa Bell doesn't have the resolve to actually tackle these problems, skirting the surface of everything, pretending to offer solutions, and moving on. It's the thematic equivalent of namedropping.

Still, the last act is uncommonly ambitious, actually springing a genuine surprise (I was kicking myself for not having guessed it) and bravely marching off in a different direction. The nuance with which it handles the revelations regarding the Holly Hunter character is impressive, doing an about-face without making everything black-and-white for the sake of handy plot resolution. And it's so rare for a rom-com to throw in something that deviates from the formula in any significant way, that I was already willing to grant an unusual amount of leeway.

But even here, the film falters. It lets the protagonist off the hook despite the fact that she deserves a figurative spanking as much as a certain someone else. Beyond that, the script refutes its own thesis -- that trying to maintain complete control of one's life is foolish, and sometimes it's better just to let things happen -- with the final scene, an astonishingly lame bit of wish-fulfillment. It's hard to make a point while working within crowd-pleaser conventions, and Little Black Book doesn't do a particularly good job, choosing to cut and run rather than take a stab at it.

As unsatisfactory as the ending turns out to be, the first hour is much worse -- we have no idea that the film has something more on its mind, and are forced to suffer through sub-sitcom material with no reprieve in sight. The plot -- girl suddenly becomes obsessed with the old flames her boyfriend never talks about -- has been done on every cancelled half-hour comedy in history, and most of the jokes feel like all they're missing is a laugh track. There is some incidental cleverness -- I loved the bizarro accent of the sexy model, for example, and by the way, she is played by the same actress who played the unforgettable "Marishka" character in Van Helsing -- but the general mood is one of laziness and desperation. It's pretty insufferable.

List of other things that are insufferable: 1) Brittany Murphy. She wants to be Meg Ryan so badly; she's got the hairstyle, the nose-scrunching and the adorableness. Though instead of actually channelling Ryan, her overt attempts at cuteness make her seem vaguely inebriated, and most of the time we wish she would just pass out for the rest of the movie. I don't know where she has come from, but send her back -- her nagging brand of comedy is not what we need right now. She's never met a line she couldn't overdo.

Oh, and for some reason, Kathy Bates is here. She plays Kippie Kann, the washed-up talk show host who employs the Brittany Murphy character and sets the plot in motion. Actually, it sounds like a terrific role for Bates; she's good at turning these kinds of gimmick roles into something significant. Here she seems to have no angle; she plays the role entirely straight, an inexplicable choice for such an absurdist character. I was instinctively glad to see her, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what she was doing.

So yeah, the film, directed by Nick Hurran (Virtual Sexuality) is dire for roughly 75% of the time; there's just those fifteen minutes before the last three scenes that show uncommon promise and ambition. It's discouraging that, despite appearances, the film doesn't really have any serious intentions, but if nothing else, I was grateful for the sudden left turn. Little Black Book has nothing to say, but it's betting that we don't figure that out.