Ira & Abby
Studio: Magnolia
Rated: R
Cast: Chris Messina, Jennifer Westfeldt
Director: Robert Cary
WorkNameSort: Ira & Abby
Our Rating: 3.50
An uptight guy with moneyed parents marries a carefree girl on a whim, and culture-clash hijinks ensue as his crabbiness collides with her free spirit. Sound familiar? It should. Ira & Abby is the story arc for the entire five seasons of Dharma & Greg compressed into movie-length form. This stunning lack of originality is a disappointing reflection on the state of independent filmmaking – even more so given the presence of Fred Willard, Jason Alexander, Frances Conroy, Darrell Hammond and Robert Klein in the cast. Screenwriter – and star – Jennifer Westfeldt seems content to disappoint, beating the crazy-girl-neurotic-Jew drum through the movie’s midpoint. Then the thematic threads – deception, fidelity, emotional histories, psychotherapy – that had been almost imperceptibly developed come to the fore. By waiting so long for the film to address these issues, Westfeldt and director Robert Cary made a tactical gamble; expending so much energy on frivolous comedy runs the risk of derailing the whole affair. But somehow, Ira & Abby emerges as a multifaceted movie; the group-therapy scene that wraps it up brings those substantial themes together in a way that’s uproariously funny.
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2007.