This character drama, set in a local pub in rural New York State, focuses on the lives, thoughts, and emotions of a group of social outcasts. The lead misfit is Victor, a shy and very rotund man in his '30s who works as a pizza maker in a roadside inn. His mother, Dolly owns the establishment. She dominates his life. The senior waitress there is Dolores, an aging woman with a reputation for being easy. Dolores is resentful when Dolly hires the vivacious teenager Callie, who is in love with Jeff, a garage mechanic. Victor develops a painful crush on Callie and fantasizes about rescuing her from a life with Jeff. To help himself, he begins to diet and enrolls at a chef school. His mother becomes suddenly ill. Then Delores makes a pass at him, but he doesn't respond. He does however, feel emboldened to make a play for Callie. His actions lead him into a new world of expression. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
The gloomy surroundings, somber tone, and languid pace ultimately become wearying, but this romantic drama from writer/director
James Mangold hailed the arrival of an interesting, provocative artist to join the mid-'90s wave of talented indie newcomers that also included
Todd Solondz, David O. Russell, and
Paul Thomas Anderson. Mangold draws powerful performances from his cast, particularly lead
Pruitt Taylor Vince, a respected character actor who carries the film on his sad-sack shoulders with varying degrees of palpable fear, pain, and hope. Vince is complemented by the willowy
Liv Tyler in one of her first, star-making parts, and especially by the revelatory Debbie Harry as a waitress bruised by life -- promiscuous, envious, and still harboring a flickering scrap of romantic hope. If Mangold can learn to forgo the turgid pacing and overweening sense of doomed portent that hangs like a noxious cloud over this film and his subsequent, underrated
Cop Land (1997), he may become one of the finest actor's directors of his cinematic freshman class. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide