Kissing Jessica Stein: Review By B. Alan Orange

Code Orange Alert #38391: Kissing Jessica Stein

Kissing Jessica Stein tastes like impetigo scabs licked off the bottom of a well-used ashtray. Okay, not really. I'm just being mean. This is basically a good movie; like I'm basically a good kid. Though, that Stein has a very unattractive mouth...

"Hey, everybody, Orange cryed through this lesbian lovefest!"

"I wasn't crying. I was hungry. What you heard was my stomach growling."

"No, you were sniffling with a mad hand-wipe to the nose every five seconds. When Julia Stiles is sitting next to her mom on the stoop, and her mom knows instinctively that her daughter's a muff diver; boo-hoo-hoo, like a sissy. That was you, son."

"I wasn"t crying. I was thinking about Taco Bell. And it wasn't Julia Stiles, you bagless dickshark. Her name was Jessica Stein."

"Ah, does Orange need a tissue?"

"Shut up."

This movie's as mixed up as its centralized main character. I'm not sure which angle it's trying to hit. At first it seems gung-ho with its "Everybody's a Lesbian" message of goodwill and faith, then it turns into stressed biological propaganda that sits on the belief that homosexuality is chemical in its need to transpose the body. The ending screams: Either you are, or you are not, Gay. Experiment all you want, at the end of the day you'll know if you're inclined to the opposite sex. Sure, it debates this lecture for much of its length, giving us reason to believe that bi-sexuality is a rampant, incurable, healthy disease that should be spread to the masses. Girl-on-girl sex is fun and should be practiced at regular intervals, like brushing teeth.

Helen Cooper's two gay friends are on different sides of the fence. Jim doesn't believe you can wake up one morning and be gay, like out of the blue. Todd thinks its okay to invert the sex of one's partner; after all, if you close your eyes, can you really tell who's on the other end of a slobber-bob? The movie goes on like this, shifting in waves, until it comes to the ultimate conclusion that, even though Jessica Stein went digging for change in Miss Cooper's sugar wallet, she is not a homosexual and should not pretend to be one. Because, in the end, it hurts everybody.

Not to undo the commonwealth, and this message is very clear, Dikes and Straight Jewish girls do make the best of friends. But you already knew that. Still, the film's overall memorandum is blurred at the focal point. In concluding this story, Helen Cooper is a lesbian through-and-through; yet she starts off in a tryst with three or four men. In dating Jessica, she is simply "testing" the waters that gush about the inner thigh in high tide. Is she a bi-sexual? We think so, except she seems to abandon that idea once she gets a taste of Stein's kosher donut. We never see her going back to the men in her life. And the very last time she traipses past bed sheets, she's well into her next love affair with a cute blonde honey from above the boulevard. My guess is that the filmmakers don't want to offend anyone so they chose to stay vague with their subject matter. The film does, after all, give every side a chance to breathe its belief. In that, I have to weigh its closing argument as its overall, lasting opinion, which seems too be: Bandwagon Lesbianism is a passing fad, much like the Wacky Wall Walker, and it should never overshadow the importance of one's true sexuality (which is decided at birth in a biological means of being).

Actually, the debatable gay context of Kissing Jessica Stein is merely a clever device used in covering up what would otherwise be a rather boring Romantic Comedy. It works on that level, and stymies us past any contrived overt genius that might have killed us off at the pass. Much of what we have here is engaging and funny, though it's equal parts slow and obtrusive. The words "seen it all before" entered my mind more than enough times while I was sitting in my seat. Just because its two girls instead of a guy and a girl doesn't make it all that different. Helen Cooper's friend was right, close your eyes and you wouldn't know who was searching for a soul mate; though it still feels, and sounds, and slurps like a Meg Ryan/John Cusack genre piece.

Which brings up an interesting point: Isn't "One Day Lesbian Soul Mate" the only plot left unturned in the Meg Ryan cannon? I can see it coming, why can't you? Meg meets free spirit Sandra Bullock through a personal ad in the paper. They hit it off over drinks. Sensitive, neurotic Meg is frightened of her burning attraction to Sandra. After many long, trying nights of experimental kissing on the couch, Bullock, always the hipster, convinces Ryan to give up her tight, dry pouch moments before menopause. It's all so lovely? But wait, dumb me, that's this movie without the attractive co-stars. Ah, but it's a Fox Searchlight Picture. That means about three people outside the LA area are going to see it. Tweak the plot points in structure just a tad and you've got 23 million on opening weekend. Not bad numbers for mainstream alternative cinema. Of course, where Helen Cooper continues with her lesbian constraints at the end of the original picture, Bullock will have to double-switch teams just to keep the good folks in Middle America happy.

I wish Meg Ryan was in this movie. At the very least, she's attractive and appealing. Wait, I take that back. I hated her in Sleepless in Seattle, and it seems Jessica Westfeldt is taking a cue from Meg's Sleepless character and fist shoving it into her performance as Stein. The girl's very unattractive, and I don't mean that in a physical sense. No, she's got smoldering looks like the naked neighbor one's prone to spy on. It's her overbearing Jewish stereotype persona that sinks the ship with cannon holes the size of a Tercel. Jess makes it hard for me to care about her lonely troubles as a single woman. Maybe she's a gifted performer who's affixed every hitchable cliche to her back in a means to evacuate tenderness. Personally, I wouldn't be able sit through dinner with her. And the producers of the film expect me to sit through an entire two-hour picture with her? That's like giving up a lifetime.

Praise whoever is in charge of casting for throwing Heather Juergensen in the mix. As the bug-eyed Lesbian Helen Cooper, she's the cake who gets eaten too. This girl's not beautiful in the plastic sense, and her face is above the line and a little off from what you might expect in a fetching co-star, but that makes her a triple threat in the liability department. She's the sole reason for seeing Kissing Jessica Stein. But if you're sitting on the couch, trying desperately to come up with a reason why you should see this film, it's probably not for you and you should just stay home.

Yeah, I liked the movie at different levels, up to a point. I don't like how it stops on a personal conclusion without remorse. If you're going to be wishy-washy with a touchy subject, stay wishy-washy. Don't bust out a clear-cut statement in the last five minutes of your message. One has to stay consistent in presenting an argument. Give your thesis at the beginning, and then show both sides in equal argument so the audience can make up its own mind. Kissing Jessica Stein is like a juvenile High School debate where the opposing side doesn't get to stand up and give its final summation. At that level, the film doesn't play fair. As a straightforward Romantic Comedy, it's worth five bucks and a cuddle on the couch.

And I wasn't crying, you cheap, value-menu Bucket o' Dickhairs.