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80Kirk and Mol are convincing, easily inhabiting their respective roles.
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75Woody Allen certainly hasn't managed anything remotely this funny lately.
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75Puccini for Beginners, which takes its title from its heroine's passion for opera, isn't just another trendy toe-dip in sexual experimentation. It may not be the real world of New York, or even of most relationships, but it's worth a visit.
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Brainy and balmy.
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70It all looks easy when it's carried off this smoothly. But as any number of stilted duds can attest, applying a Philip Barry or Woody Allen sensibility to 21st-century New Yorkers in their 30s is as delicate a craft as diamond cutting.
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70Fresh Manhattan locations prove as photogenic as the leads, and the supporting actors--especially Tina Benko as a glacial, impeccably dressed amazon--don't miss a beat of Maggenti's snappy dialogue.
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67In the end, it's all la dolce vita no matter how you look at it.
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67The plot, which spins around Allegra's lovers having just been an item, is awkward bedroom farce, but the tone is Woody Allen-meets-"The L Word," with a patina of literary cuteness that now seems like the sound of a vanished Manhattan.
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63Considering how good "Puccini's" middle often is, it's a shame it falls down fore and aft. But Maggenti, who loves Carole Lombard and William Powell in "My Man Godfrey," is tapping a likable vein here. She should open it up again.
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63If Woody Allen were a young, attractive gay woman, he might make something like this, or so Maggenti hopes. But it would probably be funnier, and it would definitely cut deeper.
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60Bisexuality certainly increases the geometric possibilities of the romantic comedy, completing its triangles and allowing for quadrangles and other, more amorphous layers of amorous involvement.
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60While it tips its hat to screwball comedy, Puccini for Beginners owes more to contemporary sitcom. It also has way more in common with "Sex and the City" than "The L Word." None of that is entirely a bad thing in a film that never really soars but has enough breezy humor.
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50Awkward, unconvincing bisexual roundelay.
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50Puccini for Beginners is literate and sensitive, characterized by witty dialogue and smart, emotional two-person encounters.
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50There's also precious little chemistry between the players. Only Mol has any charm of which to speak, and, frankly, she deserves much better.
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50There's no conviction among these self-involved folks who sidestep commitment with a quip and a grin.
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50Puccini for Beginners may divide individual audience members. It divided me; rarely have I seen a film simultaneously so good and so bad.
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50Maggenti is still trapped behind surfaces, enamored of the IDEA of making a buoyant, urbane romantic comedy, while falling short of anything really resonant or personal.
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Maggenti suffocates her story with dated references to every buzzword from Laura Mulvey's feminist catalog except for "the male gaze." In short, a nightmare worse than "Trust the Man."
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30But when mechanical plots are a drama's main engine, we look for something else to divert us, preferably good comedy. That's in short supply, unfortunately. And it's no fun to sit through the movie's retread Woody Allenisms.
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PaulB.9
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