Addicted to Love

A romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick, complete with yawn-stifling title, leaves one bracing for the inevitable onset of cognitive decay. But first-time director Griffin Dunne (After Hours) avoids stagnancy by knowing his cast's strengths. And thanks to fluid camera work and an intriguing warehouse setting of expressionistic shadows (the camera obscura sequences are marvelous), the film rolls on even when the script gets bumpy.

Maggie (a sharpened Ryan) and Sam (Broderick) meet while spying on their ex-lovers, who have paired up with each other. Sam, astronomer that he is (Mr. Feynman would be proud), charts their smiles and eating habits with his camera obscura to predict when this "passing meteor shower" will blow over. But Maggie is no detached observer, and she enlists Sam in a scheme to get even with her ex, Anton (Tcheky Karyo as a Parisian Harvey Keitel). Broderick and Ryan are a more efficient comedic than romantic duo, but Dunne smartly eschews that void course, focusing instead on the dark plotting and caustic symmetries that give the film its amusing edge. At the Campus, Harbour Mall, Holiday, Showcase, Tri-Boro, Westerly, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Robert Furlong