Why doesn't romance last? asks Joe DiPietro in this "relationship" comedy, which comes off as a slightly-better-than-average TV sitcom in its West Coast premiere production. Inspired by French photographer Robert Doisneau's snapshot of a man and woman exchanging a passionate public kiss, Di Pietro gives us two New York couples grappling with issues of commitment, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity and neurotic behavior, against a backdrop of the idealized romance embodied in the controversial snapshot (which may or may not have been staged).
Julie (Robin Riker) is a high-powered, successful ad agency executive (are modern heroines anything but successful?) who is in love with Tony (Brian Cousins), a furniture-maker who shares a glitzy loft with Dave (Paul Provenza), an actor in TV commercials. Dave's beloved is Phoenix (Sybyl Walker), who teaches elementary school in the South Bronx but whose street smarts evidently do not extend to a knowledge of contraception. Her pregnancy (announced over dinner!) leads this quartet of Gen Xers to reevaluate their commitment to each other in light of the harsh realities of the sex act. DiPietro tries to have fun with their dilemmas and conflicts, but he is so lacking in comic invention that he must resort to an illiterate Italian maid (Magda Harout) for laughs.
This feeble little comedy proves that DiPietro is more a sketch-writer than a playwright (for further evidence, see his previous I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and that he has learned to paper over his deficiencies with sentimentality and cuteness.
