VIDEO OF THE WEEK
The Object of My Affection (1998)
QQQ
Writer: Wendy Wasserstein Director: Nicholas Hytner
It's the old straight-girl-falls-for-gay-guy story. But in one of those cheeky twists that enrages gay moviegoers, the gay guy in question, George (Paul Rudd), comes awfully close to falling for the straight girl in question, Nina (Jennifer Aniston), especially when she winds up pregnant by her likable lug loser of a boyfriend (John Pankow). All this queasy business threatens to render the picture an annoyingly unrealistic exercise in tedium until fey theater critic Nigel Hawthorne shows up with his live-in cutie protege, Amo Gulinello -- soon to be the new object of George's affection. Hawthorne steals the few scenes he's in as an aging, pithy pundit whose affections for his young ward are obviously not returned. He makes an interesting chum for Nina; they both want something that they can never have. And it's Hawthorne's tender, underplayed sweetness that completely saved this picture for me. So put away your claws until the film's second half; it actually is worth the wait. R (profanity, sexual situations, adult situations and subject matter)