# Simply Irresistible (1999)

### reviewed by
Jamie Peck

SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE Reviewed by Jamie Peck

Rating: * (out of ****) 20th Century Fox / 1:36 / 1999 / PG-13 (language, sexual suggestiveness) Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar; Sean Patrick Flanery; Patricia Clarkson; Dylan Baker; Betty Buckley; Larry Gillard Jr. Director: Mark Tarlov Screenplay: Judith Roberts

TV's Buffy finds herself on the other side of the supernatural spectrum in "Simply Irresistible." Sarah Michelle Gellar, that never-ceasing crusader against never-ending evil every Tuesday night on the WB network, here plays a down-on-her-luck chef suspected of dabbling in witchcraft after her flailing restaurant receives help in the form of magically scrumptious meals. Taste test results: Some vampire slaying, though out of place, would have really livened this excruciating movie up. "Simply Irresistible" is actually quite easy to deny, a disaster of culinary and other proportions pretty much from the opening on.

Gellar's Amanda finds herself falling for harried Henri Bendel exec Tom (Sean Patrick Flannery of Powder) around the same time she discovers an uncanny ability to mystically manifest emotions in her cooking, a secret ingredient that arouses both his interest in her and the public's in her tiny TriBeCa eatery. All this love and sorcery have a lot to do with the telekinetic crab that also figures into the story, a tale that at times plays like an American spin on 1993's Mexican classic "Like Water for Chocolate." Several differences: One, "Like Water" didn't have a telekinetic crab, and two, "Like Water" was a good film.

"Simply Irresistible," on the other hand, is about as challenging as an Easy-Bake Oven. Amateurishly staged scenes cancel each other out in their badness, from an embarrassing seduction in a literal vanilla fog to an impromptu dance sequence where Tom and Amanda do their best Fred and Ginger - though Fred and Ginger never took part in anything this garish. The intrusive musical score distracts from the flat dialogue at regular intervals, but it's not like you're were going to miss much. In fact, take away the few instances of salty language and this has made-for-Disney Channel written all over it.

But a majority of "Simply Irresistible"'s resistibility factor has less to do with the afore-mentioned overkill than the bland leads - Tom and Amanda are so thin and ambiguously defined that there's just no fun rooting for their inevitable "happily ever after." Nor do the otherworldly powers that serve to bring them together make sense, so we're left with a ho-hum relationship based on enchanted eclairs; it's not going to last long, people. Perhaps sensing this, the filmmakers have piled on weird supporting characters for acting vets like Betty Buckley, Dylan Baker and Patricia Clarkson, but they don't go anywhere either.

In fact, nothing in "Simply Irresistible" goes anywhere save for Gellar, and she doesn't go somewhere so much as you wish she'd go _somewhere_ - like to a better movie. Already proving major talent with relatively few big- and small-screen roles, she's the sole reason this overcooked souffle isn't completely fit for the garbage disposal, looking smashing in her Todd Oldham-designed duds and investing much more in her perfunctory part than she ever gets in return. It's certainly a dish best not served in it's current condition, but one can only guess that, without Gellar, "Simply Irresistible" would be strictly unwatchable.

© 1999 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit The Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "She doubles up in pain. Her body is wracked by great cataclysmic sobs. Her two friends weep in sympathy, the three of them wailing and gnashing. So great is their grief that mere words cannot encompass it, and they sink to the ultimate form of lamentation: They clean house. Bitter salt tears course down their cheeks as they Ajax the bathtub and Bab-O the pots and pans, while the audience collapses in disbelieving laughter." -Roger Ebert on "Let's Talk About Sex"

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews