MR. JEALOUSY (65)

Directed by: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra, Christopher Eigeman

The Pitch: A young man's compulsive jealousy leads to complications.

Theo Sez: Character comedy : the characters are similar to those in Baumbach's equally witty KICKING AND SCREAMING - lily-white, loquacious, insecure, over-analytical - the comedy more straightforwardly enjoyable, largely because the endless procrastination doesn't reek so much of self-indulgence (and because Eric Stoltz - looking more and more like Michael J. Fox - is a brighter screen presence than Josh Hamilton) : these are adults rather than arrested adolescents (though they still call each other "kid"), actually trying to sort themselves out rather than just thinking about it - and, if they remain dysfunctional, that's also what makes them such good company. Stoltz as the writer who hasn't written anything in a while ("but I'm reading a lot"), Sciorra as his girlfriend with a penchant for alarming, out-of-nowhere non sequiturs ("What would you do if I suddenly kicked you in the head right now?"), the buffoonish Carlos Jacott (of whose character it's said that he "often knocks on the door of Profundity and runs away"), and especially Eigeman at his most imperiously Eigemanesque all fit right in with the film's supple rhythms and amusingly wordy voice-over (and Baumbach, no doubt reading books with titles like "Dare To Direct" in his spare time, even throws in the occasional jump-cut). Anyone who answers the question "Is he young?" with a hesitant "Our age" will identify, though the film is far too smart to wallow in its characters' neuroses (as someone says, "You can only find incompetence endearing for so long") ; what does it say, in a film that's all talk, that the nicest, least problematic character has a speech impediment?