Accidentally Finding the Love of Her Life

“Kissing Jessica Stein” has the look and feel of a smart, stylish New York romantic comedy in which the principals are articulate and forthright about their intelligence and sophistication. Yet for an American film it is a groundbreaker in exploring the realm of sexual fluidity, and it does so with wit, wisdom and in a completely entertaining fashion. It has the sheen of a polished Hollywood production but is never glossy or glib as it deals with serious matters with delicacy, good humor and, at times, outright hilarity.

Jessica Stein (Jennifer Westfeldt) is a beautiful but neurotic newspaper journalist who aspires to be a painter. She is 28 and has yet to find Mr. Right. Her single state is of great concern to her doting mother, Judy (Tovah Feldshuh), a chic Scarsdale, N.Y., matron.

That her older brother has just announced he’s getting married and that Joan (Jackie Hoffman), her best pal at work, has become pregnant increases the pressure on her and triggers a disastrous dating spree.

Meanwhile, Helen Cooper (Heather Juergensen), an assistant director of a trendy downtown art gallery, has just placed a woman-seeking-woman ad in a personals column that begins with a quote from a poem that catches Joan’s attention--and which Jessica recognizes as a quote from Rilke. Intrigued, Jessica answers it on impulse.

Helen is far more worldly and experienced than Jessica. Indeed, she manages to juggle three male lovers, seeing each according to mood, while seeking out a passionate lesbian relationship. Jessica is so tremendously uptight at the prospect of sexual intimacy with a woman that she puts Helen’s patience and audacity to the test. When Jessica at last capitulates, she stumbles into bliss.

She also faces a whole new set of challenges. She cherishes the intimacy more than the sex that the lustier Helen provides, and Helen expects Jessica to be open about their relationship--and that includes Jessica’s family. All of this provides plenty of mostly comical complications out of which Jessica discovers how complex sexual identity can be, especially for a woman. It may well be that she is attracted to Helen more as a person than as a woman--that it may well be easier in our society for women to explore same-sex relationships yet retain a basically heterosexual orientation than it is for men. Despite her having men in her life, Helen is eager to pursue an intensely sexual relationship with another woman and sees herself as primarily a lesbian. The fact that neuroticism has been supplanted by happiness in Jessica has a major impact on her editor, Josh (Scott Cohen), who is also a former boyfriend. From childhood, Jessica has set high standards for herself and others, and their relationship foundered when Josh gave up his dream of becoming an important writer to settle for editing the work of others. He is a bright, good-looking man with a prickly personality who clearly has never gotten over losing Jessica.

Cohen’s Scott is multidimensional as is Westfeldt’s Jessica, Juergensen’s Helen and Feldshuh’s Judy, who comes on as the classically anxious and manipulative Jewish mother. But played by Feldshuh with affectionate comic flourish, this most accomplished of actresses has the opportunity to pull back and show us how perceptive and wise this most loving of mothers really is. What a pleasure it is to see Feldshuh receive a role of such breadth and depth. The screenplay, by Juergensen and Westfeldt, attracted the attention of theater veteran and cinema fledgling Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, who as director has said he saw that his task was “to create a visually dynamic cinematic environment from a script that was theatrically based.” That is precisely what he has accomplished so gracefully: “Kissing Jessica Stein” is intensely verbal yet never seems merely talky or stagy. Lawrence Sher’s camerawork is crucial in bringing a glowing vitality to a film that calls for the smoothness of a studio production rather than low-budget grit. “Kissing Jessica Stein” could turn out to be a sleeper, a date-night movie for open-minded couples.

MPAA rating: R, for sexual content and language. Times guidelines: Complex adult themes; sex is off-screen, but the language is blunt.

‘Kissing Jessica Stein’

Jennifer Westfeldt...Jessica Stein

Heather Juergensen...Helen Cooper

Tovah Feldshuh...Judy Stein

Scott Cohen...Josh Meyers

Jackie Hoffman...Joan

A Fox Searchlight Pictures release of an Eden Wurmfeld Films and a Brad Zions Films production in association with Cineric & Michel Alden Productions. Director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. Producers Eden H. Wurmfeld, Brad Zions. Writers/co-producers Heather Juergensen and Jessica Westfeldt. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher. Editors Kristy Jacobs Maslin and Greg Tilman. Music Marcelo Zarvos. Costume designer/stylist Melissa Bruning. Production designer Charlotte Bourke. Art director Tema Levine. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

At selected theaters.