Pumpkin (2002)

There may have been no advisable way to market Pumpkin, other than how they did: an outré assault on good taste in the spirit of the Farrelly Brothers, starring Christina Ricci, the youth queen of sarcasm. After all, who would believe -- or pay to see -- a mostly straightforward look at a privileged college girl falling for her mentally retarded charity case? Black comedy is probably the right category for Pumpkin, but its subversive agenda loses steam midway through, resulting in a more conventional romantic drama using unconventional parts. Still, it offers its characters a fairer shake than they get in most sorority movies full of caricatures and pre-established satirical norms. Tony R. Abrams and Adam Larson Broder have succeeded in more ways than they've failed in their directorial debut, but their earnest attempt to supply stock characters with sympathetic dimension can seem naïve. Ricci's character is better when obliviously trampling on emotions, as when she sets up a blind date between Pumpkin and an overweight girl in her poetry class, trying to link up their lost souls. Achieving genuine empathy is her destiny, but it deprives Broder's script of some of its prior bite. On the other hand, making fun of all the characters would have been an easier, more certain route, so the rookie filmmakers can't be blamed for taking risks that don't pan out. If Pumpkin is ultimately unconvincing, it's because the subject matter has so much built-in implausibility, not because it was mishandled. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide