Falling for Mr. Right in ‘Head Over Heels’

“Head Over Heels” is a formulaic romantic comedy with enough humor and vitality to predict that it will have wide audience appeal yet not enough individuality to enable it to have much of a run. But then it has the feel of the disposable, a product made with ruthless efficiency and a militant eye to the budget that delivers the expected goods and is then swiftly forgotten.

Those looking for an undemanding date-night diversion could, however, do worse. Monica Potter plays Amanda, a painting conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specializing in the Renaissance period. She’s enchanted by the romantic quality of many of these paintings and yearns to find in life the kind of idealized love she sees depicted in art. When Monica comes home to find her boyfriend in bed with another woman, she’s swiftly jolted into hunting for another apartment. Entering a posh Upper East Side apartment house, where four young women have advertised for a fifth roommate, she is promptly knocked flat on her back by an enormous, lunging Great Dane, loose from a young fashion executive (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who was taking the dog out for a walk on behalf of a neighbor. Talk about foreshadowing: One look at Prinze’s Jim is all it takes for Amanda, despite her inherent wariness, to be knocked for a loop.

Miraculously uninjured, Amanda proceeds to give the apartment a look-see and finds herself living with four top models: Jade (Shalom Harlow), Roxana (Ivana Milicevic), Candi (Sarah O’ Hare) and Holly (Tomiko Fraser). They are played, to the hilt, by four gorgeous young woman who are themselves segueing from modeling to acting. Their presence is the film’s most inspired touch. Director Mark Waters and his clutch of writers seem to have been willing to give the four full rein in having fun sending up model stereotypes while allowing them to emerge from behind a lot of haughty, shallow attitudes to prove to be down-to-earth women quick to come to Amanda’a aid, whether it be tips on makeup, dress and how to handle men--or trying to save her life. Prinze is ever the reliable charmer, and Potter is pretty and capable, but also a bit bland.

In any event, Amanda becomes a lady in distress as well as a woman craving love but leery of the consequences. She’s initially blown away to discover that her new apartment looks right down into Jim’s apartment in the building next door, and he’s not one for pulling down his shades. Alas, the one time some of his shades are drawn, she is horror-stricken to see him in silhouette apparently bludgeon a woman to death. Never fear, this thriller development is played for action and not to be taken too seriously.

*

Although “Head Over Heels” moves swiftly, has an appealing cast and a serviceably diverting plot, it is nevertheless hard to fall head over heels over it. The problem is its relentlessly crass tone and the jackhammer way it socks over its yocks. The sight of a woman--or a man, for that matter--being lunged at by a powerful dog is not especially funny in the first place--it is, in fact, astounding that Amanda did not suffer a concussion at the very least--yet this lunging dog bit is repeated again and yet again.

Similarly, it’s not enough for Amanda to go weak in the knees over Jim, but for her knees to go out, making her fall to the ground repeatedly, to the point that you start saying to yourself, “Surely the Met offers health insurance.” The film gets some sure-fire laughs at the expense of gays, a transvestite and the elderly that in effect seem instances of the easily exploitative rather than the truly derisive. Waters’ sensibility, not surprisingly, is better attuned to making the most of a couple of moments of gleefully tasteless gross-out humor. With the handsome-looking “Head Over Heels,” it’s a case of the chronic affliction of so many Hollywood movies these days: It lacks that light touch that can make all the difference.

MPPA rating: PG-13, for sexual content, crude humor and language. Times guidelines: fairly mild language and sex; some violence.

‘Head Over Heels’

Monica Potter: Amanda

Freddie Prinze Jr.: Jim

Sarah O’Hare: Candi

Shalom Harlow: Jade

Ivana Milicevic: Roxana

Tomiko Fraser: Holly

A Universal Pictures presentation. Director Mark Waters. Producer Robert Simonds. Executive producers Tracey Trench, Julia Dray, Ed Decter, John J. Strauss. Screenplay by Ron Burch, David Kidd; from a story by Strauss, Decter, Kidd and Burch. Cinematographer Mark Plummer. Editor Carla Silverman. Music Randy Edelman, Steve Porcaro. Costume consultant Tracey Ross. Production designer Perry Andelin Blake. Art director Lance King. Set designer Catherine Ircha. Set decorator Dominique Fauquet-Lemaitre. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

In general release.