‘The Favor’ a Pleasant Comedy

“The Favor” is a pleasant romantic comedy, aimed at thirtysomethings and younger, and it affords solid roles for Harley Jane Kozak and Elizabeth McGovern. Bearing a 1991 copyright, the film had been held up by the bankruptcy filing by Orion Pictures, which has since reorganized.

Married 10 years to Peter (Bill Pullman), a nice, but often preoccupied, guy, Kozak’s Kathy finds that as her 15th high school reunion approaches she starts dreaming of her high school boyfriend, a macho football player with whom she did not go all the way. She and Peter, who live in Portland, have been married long enough to have two small daughters and busy lives loaded with responsibilities, and to discover that both are often too tired to make love.

Kathy realizes she’s got what might be called a 10-year itch, but is not about to scratch it. However, there’s no reason why her best pal Emily (McGovern) can’t look up her old boyfriend Tom (Ken Wahl) while she’s on Denver on business. Emily is a single, definitely liberated woman who says she’s getting tired of her younger lover (Brad Pitt) anyway. Indeed, Kathy thinks that she might just get Tom out of her system if Emily ended up in bed with him. Predictably, Kathy’s cockamamie logic backfires spectacularly, even beyond her being driven crazy by Emily’s description of Tom’s awesome sexual prowess.

“The Favor” is as American as apple pie, perhaps in its way as puritanical as “The Scarlet Letter.” Kathy is a healthy, attractive young woman with a completely natural and understandable sexual longing, which Kozak expresses with much good humor. But you suspect strongly that writers Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon and director Donald Petrie aren’t going to let Kathy have her fling with Tom. In any event, there’s much elaborate contrivance to bring the film to its finish.

The cast, however, does sparkle, and Kozak and McGovern play off each other smartly. Pullman’s a likable nerd and Pitt is especially good as a young man who has to struggle mightily to be taken seriously by his elders--elders by six or seven years. Wahl finds hilarity in the hunky Tom, even though he’s been arbitrarily given a nasty side. Larry Miller contributes one of his insidious pompous types as the worst possible man Peter could take as a confidante. There’s a bit of sadness, too, underlying “The Favor” in that people still in their 30s actually believe they’re getting old.

* MPAA rating: R, for language. Times guidelines: Its basic premise is about a sexual situation, so it includes considerable innuendo and adult situations.

‘The Favor’

Harley Jane Kozak: Kathy

Elizabeth McGovern: Emily

Bill Pullman: Peter

Brad Pitt: Elliott

Ken Wahl: Tom Andrews

Larry Miller: Joe Dubin

An Orion Pictures release of a Nelson Entertainment presentation. Director Donald Petrie. Producer Lauren Shuler-Donner. Executive producers Barry Spikings, Rick Finklestein, Donna Dubrow. Screenplay by Sara Parriott, Josann McGibbon. Cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt. Editor Harry Keramides. Costumes Carol Oditz. Music Thomas Newman. Production designer David Chapman. Art director Mark Haack. Set decorator Clay A. Griffith. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.