Simply Irresistible

Simply Irresistible Review

Only rarely is a romantic fantasy ever done right on film. This is one of those rare films. The charaacters are played perfectly and the story unfolds perfectly. This stoy does not degenerate into a formulaic romantic comedy. It has elements of comedy - in fact some truly funny moments - but even though you get more real laughs in this movie than in most supposed comedies (romantic or not) this is not primarily a comedy. This movie is about romance. It is about the wishes of our hearts. And it is a beautiful story beautifully done.

We watch this movie at least once a year- owning it makes total sense.

Simply Irresistible Overview

Beautiful restaurant owner Amanda Shelton (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is falling head over heels for handsome, hard-driving executive Tom Bartlett (Sean Patrick Flanery). Unfortunately, Tom is too busy to recognize that she's truly the girl of his dreams until Amanda puts him under her tantalizing spell!

Simply Irresistible Specifications

Call it Buffy the Culinary Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar, who usually runs around staking vampires and fighting demons, turns cute and cuddly as an aspiring chef in this magical-realist comedy that borrows a page--heck, whole chapters--from Like Water for Chocolate. Out at the market one day, Gellar stumbles on both a magical crab and the babelicious Sean Patrick Flanery who, wouldn't you know it, is opening up a posh restaurant at Bendel's department store (actually, the two have been brought together by fairy godfather Christopher Durang). Odd and implausible circumstances give these two cuties more opportunities to moon at each other, and suddenly Gellar's cooking takes off--turns out all her nicey-nice feelings towards Flanery are going into her cooking, with the help of that quiet but powerful little crab. Gellar's almost-closed restaurant starts to thrive, and her desserts begin making everyone horny. A cute premise that never really takes off, Simply Irresistible glides along on Gellar's charisma alone; in her off hours, Buffy certainly can be the lighthearted girl next door, and Gellar works to give some depth to her one-dimensional character. Flanery, though, while appealing at times, plays up his character's commitment-phobia to irritating degrees. Chock full of fairy-tale elements that never really come together (is that crab really necessary?), Irresistible does boast charming performances by Patricia Clarkson and Dylan Baker as Flanery's secretary and boss, respectively. However, it's a little odd to see these two, who scored raves for two serious and harrowing art-house flicks (Clarkson in High Art, Baker in Happiness) doing the light-and-fluffy romantic comedy thing. They're two of the very few ingredients that occasionally make this soufflé of a movie rise; at the end, however, it's flat as a pancake. --Mark Englehart

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 16, 2010 19:05:05