Gray Matters
Studio: Yari Film Group
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: 2007-02-23
Cast: Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Cumming, Sissy Spacek
Director: Sue Kramer
WorkNameSort: Gray Matters
Our Rating: 0.50
Gray Matters, but this movie certainly doesn’t. Heather Graham, wasting away her talents on garbage once again, plays Gray, a perpetually single New York advertising executive who spends a bit too much time with her brother Sam (Thomas Cavanagh) and not enough time meeting men. When she slaps a drunken kiss on Sam’s fiancee Charlie (Bridget Moynahan) the night before their impromptu wedding, she has a sexual awakening: Ta-da, she likes girls! First-time writer-director Sue Kramer must have simply memorized a few screenwriting manuals and watched a half-dozen romantic comedies to excrete this embarrassing, sub’Nancy Meyers prattle, which will make viewers who aren’t Cosmo subscribers want to blow their brains out. Kramer gives us broad quirk rather than human characteristics, and strained attempts at profundity via obvious metaphors and an abundance of film quotations as a desperate gasp for credibility. New York has never looked as nondescript as it does under her artless gaze, and Sam is one of the most under-written, vacuous male leads in recent memory. I’d much rather go fish or kiss Jessica Stein. (PG-13)
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2007.