MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’: Unromantic Comedy

In “You Can’t Hurry Love” (citywide), hero Eddie (David Packer) a 20-ish guy from Akron arrives in Los Angeles without job or credentials. He’s immediately set up in posh San Fernando Valley digs with his hustling, madcap buddy Skip (Scott McGinnis)--who leaps out of the refrigerator to greet him.

Skip tells Eddie that they’re now in the city of style over substance and, obligingly, Eddie proceeds to lie his way through most of the movie. Pursuing bedmates through a local video dating service, he switches personalities, from movie director to rock ‘n’ roller to rich kid, with each new date.

Not surprisingly, these dates don’t work out. One girl (Judy Balduzzi) turns out to be the dancing troll at an amusement park. Another (Kristy McNichol) is a performance artist with a taste for sadomasochism. Another (Merete Van Kamp) is an exhibitionist who likes sex in shop windows. Another (Danitza Kingsley) has Jake (“Body by Jake”) Steinfeld as a vengeful boyfriend.

While Eddie muses discontentedly over his lot, writer-director Richard Martini springs on him that blinding revelation of ‘80s “daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys” comedies. Style is not enough, sex is not enough. BMWs, parties at Spago’s, Melrose Avenue--it’s all just dust in the wind. Only true love and emotional honesty can save our hero--and they come nicely packed in the form of the dating service’s Bridget Fonda (Peter’s daughter).

Some double standard seems to be operating. If the movie were an honest satire of Los Angeles, consumer culture and modern dating, would it have as its heroine the dating service huckster? Would it exploit exhibitionism or sadomasochism in such a light-minded way? The film makers seem to be simultaneously damning modern hedonism and wallowing in it.

Producer Jonathan Krane--executive producer on eight Blake Edwards movies--has assembled an oddly stellar cast, mostly in cameo roles: Sally Kellerman, Anthony Geary and Kristy McNichol. And Edwards himself seems an influence on the picture’s style--though it may not be a debt he’d like to acknowledge.

Martini has some comic talent; he shoots the film in a way that almost suggests burlesque acts, tumbling after each other. Some of the acts are amusing: Charles Grodin as a condom-dispensing dad; Lu Leonard as the impassioned video director; McNichol, cast against type as the kinky performance artist; David Leisure of the Isuzu TV ads, as the ultimate L.A. smarm.

But it’s difficult to feel any connection with these people or to sympathize with Eddie’s so-called plight. What kind of sympathy can you offer someone whose major worries are how to cope with languor, hard work days on Venice Beach, too many dates with beautiful women on Saturday night--and a buddy who keeps jumping out of the refrigerator?

‘YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE’ A Lightning Pictures presentation. Producer Jonathan Krane. Director-writer Richard Martini. Camera Peter Lyons Collister, Jonathan Schwartzman. Music Bob Esty. Art director Douglas A. Mowat. With David Packer, Bridget Fonda, Kristy McNichol, Scott McGinnis, David Leisure, Anthony Geary, Lu Leonard.

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.