Love at First Slight

Romance and friendship square off in Boys and Girls

The question at hand is, are Freddie Prinze Jr.’s dimples, Claire Forlani’s navel, Blair Witch’s Heather, American Pie’s pastryphile Jason Biggs, and a script by a couple guys who apparently believe writing a direct-to-video Dennis Rodman flick has earned them enough attitude to refer to themselves in the credits as “The Drews” (Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller – get it?), enough to carry a movie?

What do you think?

Prinze plays Ryan, a nerdy engineering student who at college befriends Jennifer (Forlani), with whom he’s had an ongoing series of unpleasant chance meetings since they were twelve. They shepherd each other through an academia cluttered with problematic roommates and lovers only to finally have a fling. Which could have been a worthwhile plot had the movie not succumbed to its own dialogue: “It’s easier to have sex than to think of something clever to say.”

Jr. does his best, but Forlani, having long been appearing as much more mature characters in things like Meet Joe Black, Basquiat, and even Mystery Men, doesn’t look very collegiate anymore. Meanwhile, Jason Biggs just lies a lot and changes his hair color every scene, while Heather Donahue, taking time out from her Steak ‘N’ Shake commercials, ambles around like a possum caught in headlights. The whole thing looks to have been shot with cheap cameras on cheaper film stock, and reaches its reverse-An Officer and a Gentleman ending way too slowly. Boys and Girls is so boring and insipid I tried to bribe the projectionist to lose the second reel so I could leave early. But no, he was saving up to put a Blaupunkt in his Kia, and I didn’t have the cash on hand to meet his price.

This time (as with Me, Myself, & Irene, too) you’ll definitely want to leave before the end-title bit, which is devoted entirely to the supplementary question, “do Victoria’s Secret models fart?” D


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