October 20, 1995<\/p>\n
There’s fun in the cards<\/i><\/b>
\nJoan Bunke<\/i><\/p>\n
At The Movies<\/b><\/p>\n
“Solitaire for 2” pits a romantic predator against a realistic psychic in a romantic comedy that’s British-quirky to the core. It’s fun, clever, lightweight – a spritzy tonic to a movie season weighed down by too many thrillers that disgust rather than entertain.<\/p>\n
Writer-director Gary Sinyor plays with the theme of manipulation here, via his handsome, heartless hero, Daniel Becker (Mark Frankel).<\/p>\n
Daniel’s played the field for years – lots of sex, lots of fun, no commitments. He has one of those make-work jobs that corporations offer in lieu of work that contributes to society: He’s a lecturer on body-language to middle-class business types in brown suits who want to read the competition’s mind.<\/p>\n
A control freak, Daniel plays his manipulative games with anything female, including the blond, buxom motorcycle cop who keeps pulling him over in his souped-up sports car.<\/p>\n
For sport, he zeroes in on Katie Burill, a paleontologist who also has ESP, or something like extrasensory perception. She reads Daniel’s tricky mind – and she doesn’t like the sex-driven plotting she gets from her “readings.”<\/p>\n
“There’s more to life than lust,” she snarls. As for Daniel, he’s interested in conquest, nothing more. “Once we’ve done it,” he says, “I can forget about it.”<\/p>\n
Katie keeps fobbing him off. Matter of fact, she’s very physical: She punches him every chance she gets. Daniel comes back for more, playing it cool but drawn by her brush-off. Round and round they go – bouncing their
\ngripes with each other off Daniel’s happily married friends.<\/p>\n
Katie even reads Daniel’s dreams – and she’s really ticked when she discovers he’s having an erotic dream about Caroline (Maryam D’Abo), wife of his best friend, Harry (Jason Isaacs).<\/p>\n
The Katie-Daniel dates – whether in restaurants or at the National History Museum (and listening to a band called Right Said Fred) – turn into disasters. They’re further complicated by Katie’s research partner, Dr. Sandip (Roshan Seth), who plays a crafty professional game that turns personal in a way that sets Katie to punching again.<\/p>\n
Round and round the two mini-monster egos go, falling in love along the way, of course, and popping off crisp dialogue. Director Sinyor favors jump- cutting and letting us fill in the blanks. It’s a refreshing change from the A-B-C stuff we usually get in American films.<\/p>\n
A fringe benefit of the story is that Sinyor shot some of the night scenes in the greenery-draped Colonnade on Hampstead Heath. It’s a mysterious and enchanting night location worth the whole film – which is a delight for its actors, its sense of great fun and a couple of tunes, “Love Is the Drug” and ” All the Love We Need.”<\/p>\n
7 “Solitaire for 2” – Written and directed by Gary Sinyor, produced by Sinyor and Richard Holmes; with Amanda Pays, Mark Frankel, Maryam D’Abo, Jason Isaacs, Roshan Seth, Liza Walker. Cavalier features. Rated * * *, as Joan Bunke sees it, on a rising scale from no stars (hopeless) to five stars (excellent).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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