KISSING JESSICA STEIN

Starring: Jennifer Westfeldt, Heather Juergensen and Scott Cohen
Director: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
Running Time: 96 mins
Certificate: 15

Jessica (Westfeldt) thought see was going to be single for the rest of her life. She just couldn't find a man that didn't have an annoying habit that would just ruin any chance of progressing past a first date. While reading the singles page in the New Yorker, she noticed an ad that used a quote from a favourite author but it was in the women seeking women section. Curiosity and seeking a change from her usual first date disasters, Jessica arranges to meet Helen (Juergensen) just to see if there is anything there.

Based on a play written five years ago by stars Westfeldt and Juergensen, the movie wants to be funny and heart warming but is does really manage either.

With a typical New York soundtrack that could be pulled from any Woody Allen or Nora Ephron movie, the film seems like it is trying too hard to wedge itself into the typical Manhattan rom-com category. Lingering shots of the skyline, the characters jogging around the lake in Central Park and the whole Sex and the City cliché of the Big Apple's acceptance of homosexuality.

While the cast are good, as they should be seen as they wrote it, and it is funny in parts there isn't anything really new here to capture your attention. There is nothing we haven't seen before in the numerous Jewish comedies that have come before it. The over baring mother who just wants her daughter to meet a man and it constantly trying to set her up on dates with her friends sons from the Temple, the childhood sweetheart how doesn't realise that he still loves her until she is unavailable, the overly camp gay best friends and a Jewish lead character that is full of self doubt, all of which we have seen before.

Kissing Jessica Stein isn't an awful movie but you'll just leave the cinema thinking "Haven't I seen this all before?"

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