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March 29, 2002/Nisan 16 5762, Vol. 54, No. 28
'Jessica Stein' combines comedy, romance
MICHAEL FOX
Northern California Jewish Bulletin
How bad is Jessica Stein's love life? Even in the sanctity of shul, while Jessica's engrossed in High Holiday services, her mother feels compelled to noisily point out potential candidates.
One doesn't expect the rest of "Kissing Jessica Stein" to match the shocking irreverence of its opening scene. In fact, this breezy and warm-hearted Manhattan romantic comedy has a far more scandalous surprise in store.
"Kissing Jessica Stein," which was written and produced by its lead actresses, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, and directed by former San Francisco performance artist and theater director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, tonight (Friday, March 29) in the Valley.
Jessica (played by Westfeldt) is a journalist in her mid-to-late 20s who's closing in on that point where idealism and enthusiasm risk curdling into disappointment and cynicism.
It doesn't help that her handsome boss Josh (Scott Cohen), a not-so-nice Jewish boy, was also her college boyfriend. They never fully resolved their break-up, so their daily interactions are fraught with sexual tension, professional fru-stration and intellectual one-upmanship.
After a string of loser dates culled from the personal ads, Jessica responds to an ad placed by a woman. (It doesn't make a lot of sense, but contrivance has always been the mother's milk of romantic comedy.)
Despite Jessica's ambivalence - she tries to flee their initial rendezvous because "this isn't me" - they hit it off in a New York minute. Confident and hypersexual, Helen Cooper (Jeurgensen) is a tonic to Jessica, who mentally masticates the pleasure out of everything.
But Jessica has a problem, and it's not that Helen isn't Jewish. Although she adores Helen, Jessica can't get past her definition of herself as heterosexual.
Most romantic comedies manufacture class distinctions, geographical distance or simple misunderstandings that the duo of destiny must spend 90 minutes surmounting. The obstacle here is right at hand, yet less easily solved.
A large chunk of "Kissing Jessica Stein" deals with Helen's attempts to do that seemingly harmless little act. Casual sex is such a staple of the movies that it's downright perverse to see a film where the main character is an inadvertent champion of chastity.
Jeurgensen and Westveldt wring plenty of laughs, most of them painful, from Jessica's yes-I-will-no-I-can't dance and Helen's growing annoyance.
Illustrating that all comedy draws on its predecessors, Westveldt plays Jessica as a cross between the screen personas of Woody Allen and his '70s foil, Diane Keaton. Bright, neurotic and easily flustered, Jessica is a pratfall artist with a three-digit IQ.
"Kissing Jessica Stein" is likable but hardly memorable, saddled as it is with the basic credibility problem of contemporary romantic comedies. We're asked to believe that these intelligent, well-educated, well-read, well-off and (last but hardly least) exceedingly attractive urban dwellers have a problem finding their match.
There's nothing seriously at stake for Jessica or Helen, professionals and artists for whom life will turn out just fine.
Whatever weight the film has, it is provided by the ever-reliable Tovah Feldshuh. As Jessica's mother, she has several fine scenes, covering the bases from oblivious Jewish yenta to dispenser of pragmatic counsel to icon of acceptance.
In its matter-of-fact depiction of Jewish acceptance of homosexuality, "Kissing Jessica Stein" does advance mainstream perceptions of Jewish liberalism. At the same time, it provides a light-hearted counterbalance to "Trembling Before G-d," the controversial documentary that challenges Orthodox Judaism's intolerance for gays and lesbians.
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