Semisweet but artificial ‘Desserts’
There will be those for whom the mere pairing of former “Picket Fences” love interests Lauren Holly and Costas Mandylor will be reason enough to watch “Just Desserts,” a made-for-TV romantic comedy about pastry chefs from opposite sides of the Harlem River that premieres Sunday night on the Hallmark Channel. Even viewers less enamored of the leads may stick around to the end, in the same way that one can in a single sitting rip through a whole box of mass-produced “chocolate” mini-doughnuts without quite realizing it or even tasting them.
There is, to be sure, a place in the cultural diet for mass-produced “chocolate” mini-doughnuts, though, as with the mini-doughnut at hand, they do not reward close attention -- you can taste the shortcuts, the cheapness, the essential phoniness of the thing. “Just Desserts” tastes of the factory. It is half-baked and bland. The cake doesn’t rise. The souffle goes pfft. But it is sweet enough if all you’re looking for is a hit of sugar.
Unlike the legendary torta Barozzi, the secret recipe that garnishes the plot here, the formula for romantic comedy is commonly known: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Many fine films have been made from that recipe, but if art were only a matter of following instructions ... well, it wouldn’t be art, for one thing. In cooking as in TV movies, there is an unquantifiable element -- “talent” I suppose is the word -- that can turn an apple pie into an epiphany. No such magic is at work here.
From the beginning, we are on familiar ground -- or above familiar ground: This is perhaps the thousandth motion picture to begin with aerial shots of Manhattan. Written by Joseph Tropiano -- who co-wrote a tastier food movie, “Big Night,” with his cousin Stanley Tucci -- “Just Desserts” reprises the earlier film’s premise of a small family business threatened with bankruptcy. As is often the case when a small family business is threatened, there is a Big Contest, with a conveniently large cash prize, just waiting to be won.
It’s the Golden Whisk pastry bake-off in this case, and it brings our sexy principals into the necessary close orbit. Mandylor is Marco, a baker from the Bronx; Holly is Grace, a Manhattan A-list pastry chef. They are, naturally, opposites -- he the marinara to her mayonnaise, the Spumoni to her vanilla -- in other words, the Tracy to her Hepburn. He is her great big Italian cannoli; she is his delicate blond puff pastry. They fight, they love. They both have flour in their blood.
It starts out promisingly, but the more the plot advances, the more plot holes appear; the more time we spend with the characters, the less substantial they seem. The film appears to have been written backward from the wedding bells, with no regard for the likelihood of detail or behavior. Marco, for instance, carries around a written copy of his secret recipe apparently for the sole purpose of showing it to the wrong person at the wrong time. A rival, evil celebrity chef (Andy Lauer of “Caroline in the City”) masquerades as French, though it would be widely known, even on the movie’s terms, that he isn’t. The willful suspension of disbelief is necessary even to the best romantic comedies -- you have to allow yourself to think that things might not work out exactly as you know they will -- but you shouldn’t have to work quite so hard at it.
If you opt out after the first 15 minutes and just imagine the rest of the movie, perhaps while leafing through a cookbook, you might have a better time. Or you could just turn the sound down -- Holly and Mandylor are nice to look at, and occasionally the camera does right by the food, though never to the point of making the mouth water. The production is flat, the images dull, and though some of this is a function of budget, it is not impossible to make good, good-looking cheap entertainments.
Also in the mix are Bruce Thomas, in the Ralph Bellamy role of dispensable boyfriend; Brenda Vaccaro, doing a Lainie Kazan (talkative ethnic mother); and David Proval as wise old Uncle Fabrizio, a role as far as possible from Richie Aprile, the icky creep he played on “The Sopranos.” Uncle “Fab” has a vial of “special flavor” whose use at certain key moments remains confusing to me, especially as it is revealed (I am giving nothing important away) to be water. Wolfgang Puck makes a brief appearance as Wolfgang Puck, but given the amount of time he already spends on TV, his presence here is no more than parsley.
*
‘Just Desserts’
Where: The Hallmark Channel
When: Premieres 7-9 p.m. Sunday
Lauren Holly...Grace Carpenter
Costas Mandylor...Marco Poloni
David Proval...Uncle Fabrizio
Brenda Vaccaro...Linda
Andy Lauer...Jacques Du Jacques
Executive producers Robert Halmi Jr. and Larry Levinson. Director Kevin Connor. Writer Joe Tropiano.
