ADDICTED TO LOVE

SYNOPSIS:
Sam (Matthew Broderick) is a naïve and romantic astronomer from a small town in the midwest. Maggie (Meg Ryan), a photographer and collage artist from New York, is a worldly-wise cynic. Strangers and polar opposites, what they have in common is an obsession with their respective lovers who have just jilted them and are now blissfully sharing a romantic apartment in Soho. Sam will do anything to win back Linda (Kelly Preston), his childhood sweetheart and only love. Maggie will do anything to get revenge on Anton (Tcheky Karyo), her charming, accomplished French lover and ex-fiance. So when Sam and Maggie encounter each other in New York, each spying on the same ‘love nest’, each watching the romance unfolding there with envy and rage, an unlikely alliance is formed. Soon Maggie convinces a reluctant Sam that the only way to get Linda back is to humiliate Anton and destroy his life.

"Here is another Hollywood film opening with no fanfare and no advance media screenings, so one tends to see it with much trepidation. But the film is an unexpected surprise, especially as it is labelled a romantic comedy: it has a unique darkness to it that makes it refreshingly different. No wonder the American critics and audiences ignored the film. It's not easily classifiable, in that one has certain clear expectations of what a romantic comedy is, how the characters should be defined and so forth. This film, more than aptly directed by Griffin Dunne, goes against the grain, yet it's a smart comedy with some truly inventive moments. Like the more popular My Best Friend's Wedding, Addicted to Love has a new kind of central female character, the anti-romantic heroine, if you will, who'll stop at nothing to exact revenge. Meg Ryan hardly fits the bill, but she equips herself nicely, and has some rather beautiful and delicious moments here. Broderick is effective as the love-struck Sam, but Kelly Preston is more the wallpaper actress in this movie, which is a pity. Though the film is certainly flawed, and tends to fall apart slightly towards the end, there is genuine chemistry between Broderick and Ryan, and a sense of offering something different in this, usually most tiresome of genres. Something different is not what one expects in mainstream Hollywood, after all."
Paul Fischer