DENISE CALLS UP (64)

Directed by: Hal Salwen

Starring: Tim Daly, Leiv Schreiber

The Pitch: A group of urban-yuppie friends never actually meet, communicating entirely by telephone.

Theo Sez: Another example of why American independents are currently the most exciting movies, effortlessly combining the two sides of the Atlantic - bringing to a Rohmeresque love of talk the classic American virtues of pace and narrative structure. It's smart and witty enough to have been another METROPOLITAN, at least if it hadn't saddled itself with a wiseass gimmick - till the very last scene we see the characters only on the phone - which doubtless made it stand out when financing was being sought but which only serves to keep the characters at a distance, especially since (unlike METROPOLITAN) the film has a slightly moralistic feel about it. Clearly it's a satire on the isolation wrought when technology has made human contact unnecessary, but it's hard not to feel that the writer-director has as much contempt as compassion for the sterile lives on view. Desperate not to seem sterile itself, the film is packed with clever details and inventive angles but also tends to overstate the big jokes (notably the birth of Denise's baby). It's a brilliant bauble, as well as perhaps the most mordant and despairing look at that standby of 90s independents, Gen-X alienation (or, as the song over the opening credits has it, "Why Get Up?"); but it's too affected, and too much of a concoction, to really work.