MOVIE REVIEW : Sweet Pleasures Wrapped Up in Irresistible Little ‘Kisses’

“I Don’t Buy Kisses Anymore” (selected theaters) is one of those irresistible little movies that pops up out of the blue to steal your heart. One can only hope that it has the chance to find the audience that it so richly deserves.

The kisses of the film’s title are the chocolate goodies that suburban Philadelphia shoe store owner Bernie Fishbine (Jason Alexander) buys every evening at a candy store (run by Eileen Brennan and Larry Storch, no less) before boarding a bus for home. One night he meets a fellow passenger, Tress Garabaldi (Nia Peeples), who could change his life. Bernie is a nice Jewish boy of 30, dutifully taking over his recently deceased father’s business and living at home with his doting mother (Lainie Kazan) and bombastic grandfather (Lou Jacobi).

Bernie hasn’t got a girl, but he does have about 30 inhibiting pounds more than his short, stocky frame can carry effectively. Tress, on the other hand, is an ambitious knockout who has it all together. While pursuing a degree in clinical psychology, she holds down a full-time job in a department store credit office, sings and plays piano one night a week at her uncle’s Italian restaurant, attends aerobics class religiously and has a boyfriend who, in Bernie’s description, “looks like Tom Cruise.” Yet Tress and Bernie strike up a friendship: He gives her advice on how to handle her credit work, she persuades him to join her gym.

Jonnie Lindsell’s wonderfully warm and substantial script is a romantic comedy that is first a serious consideration about how limiting our perceptions of each other and ourselves can be and, thankfully, is “Abie’s Italian Rose” second. Even slimmed-down, Bernie will never look like Tom Cruise, but he is hardly unattractive. But Tress thinks she’s interested in him only as a case study. She doesn’t realize that she’s responding to his interest in her entire being, not just her looks.

“I Don’t Buy Kisses Anymore” (rated PG for adult issues, but suitable family entertainment), is also a test of the spirit: Will Bernie stay in shape, no matter what, and finally take charge of his life? This needs to happen regardless of whether he and Tress will ever work out romantically, and Lindsell never loses sight of that.

Director Robert Marcarelli, who has a fine sense of behavioral humor, and his large and impeccable cast--note, for example, David Bowe as Bernie’s well-meaning but interfering brother or Cassie Yates as a chic, seasoned hooker--clearly understand they’re working with exceptional material. Kazan and Jacobi are great troupers, but this time their unabashedly ethnic roles, parts they’ve played many times before, possess genuine dimension.

Lindsell lets them reveal the human beings behind the stereotypes, and Kazan, never better, and Jacobi have in turn set a high standard for supporting performances for this new year. As for Alexander and Peeples, both so fresh and endearing, they have been given the kind of acting opportunities that have been known to transform careers.

‘I Don’t Buy Kisses Anymore’

Jason Alexander: Bernie Fishbine

Nia Peeples: Theresa Garabaldi

Lainie Kazan: Sarah Fishbine

Lou Jacobi: Irving Fein

A Skouras Pictures release of a Web-Marc Pictures production. Director Robert Marcarelli. Producer Mitchel Matovich. Executive producer Charles Weber. Screenplay by Jonnie Lindsell. Cinematographer Michael Ferris. Editor Joanne D’Antonio. Costumes Patte Dee. Music Cobb Bussinger. Production design Byrnadette di Santo. Set decorator Katherine Orrison. Sound David Waelder. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG (for adult issues, but suitable family entertainment).