Our Rating: 2.00
It’s not fair to pick on John McKay, writer/director of the new chick flick “Crush,” just because he’s a guy. After all, not only have men like George Cukor, Ingmar Bergman, and James L. Brooks proven they have the right stuff to craft what have been traditionally considered “women’s pictures,” but men are responsible for inventing the oft-dissed genre in the first place . Nonetheless, McKay’s perspective on the nature of female friendship is so abysmal and off-base that you have to wonder who encouraged him to share his delusions with the world, and if that Y-chromosome didn’t put him at a disadvantage after all. In “Crush,” two fortysomething British twits (Imelda Staunton and Anna Chancellor) turn on Yankee gal pal Andie MacDowell, whose only affront is getting some from–and then getting serious with–a dishy 25-year-old (Kenny Doughty). Their jealous pettiness and spite lead to a climax so over-the-top that the film never recovers from it: The women’s exaggerated, senseless cruelty to one another–and their equally ludicrous desire to make up immediately afterward (group hug!)–are entirely implausible.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2002.