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Ira & Abby (2006)

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Ira & Abby. Feature film. (2006, 104 mins) IMDB

...They have the nerve to call it a romantic comedy...

N

obodies and TV actors star in this feature film that is supposed to be a romantic comedy. Think about those two words. Romantic means romance, love. How we fall in love and how we keep it. Comedy means not just a happy ending but laughs. Comic moments. Funny moments. Insightful moments. Well, this film doesn't have either. I never laughed once in this movie. Not even close to a chuckle. Neither does it follow the structure of romantic comedies.

The film is mostly about a bunch of neurotic Jewish people in NYC. Talk about original. That each character is either a shrink or is seeing one is hardly original. That the climax features all these characters and their shrinks sitting on chairs in a circle is not original.

Maybe I'm asking for too much.

There's Ira. He's studying to be a shrink except he's completely neurotic and has taken six years to write his PhD dissertation.

There's Abby. She works in a health club selling memberships except she spends her time listening and supporting people, not racking up commissions.

Ira is down once again and decides to visit the club where Abby works and they meet. This is the meet cute except it's a meet frustration because it takes forever for him to get service.

It's apparently love at first sight, but I don't believe it. She asks him to marry him right in her office after only a few minutes. Then have sex in the club minutes after meeting to make sure that part works. Excuse me? That's romance? What the hell world are these people living in?

They marry. They annul the marriage. They get married again.

We meet his parents. Her parents.

Her father and his mother have a fling. It seems everybody has cheated on everybody and therefore the movie isn't about love and romance it's about the insanity of marriage.

What is the reason people get married? I don't know. Ebert likes to quote someone else who said the reason we get married is so we have a witness to our lives.

Posted 2009/01/21 at 20h07ET in Movie Commentary.

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