The Souler Opposite
Here's something we don't see enough of: a grown-up film about  dating, commitment, and the niggling little fears that chip away at our  best efforts. Christopher Meloni (TV'sLaw and Order: SVU) stars as  Barry, a thirtysomething standup comic with a bitter, sexist act that  inflames as many people as it amuses. When a leather clad biker gives his  critique with fists, Thea (Janel Moloney of TV'sThe West Wing), a  stable, sensible college student 10 years his junior, picks him up  literally and figuratively. They're hardly a perfect match: age  differences, lifestyle clashes, and sheer philosophical outlook seem to  doom them from the outset. But hope lies in the words of a palm reader who  declares them "souler opposites," in other words, made for each other.  Meloni is excellent as an overgrown adolescent who struggles against his  better nature and devolves into a glib teenager whenever he hangs out with  his equally arrested high school buddy (Timothy Busfield), who fuels his  act with more sexist, testosterone-powered rants on sex and women. Moloney  gives dignity to her Thea's activism and never plays her new-age mellowness for laughs. She's playful, witty, smart, and just a bit impulsive. Director Bill Kalmenson manages to bring new life to the clichés such romantic  comedies are built from by taking a look with a fresh eye. It's a sweetly  modest, undeservingly overlooked film that still holds out hope for  grown-up love.--Sean Axmaker