It will come as no surprise that first-time feature filmmaker Mark Levin was a producer and writer of the beloved early-1990's TV series, "The Wonder Years". The same sort of observational humor and cheeky voice-over narration is present in this small, relatively unremarkable 2005 film about the pangs of first love for a bright, sports-challenged ten-year old named Gabe, who lives in the Upper West Side with his parents, who are going through a slow-moving divorce. In the midst of his somewhat dysfunctional existence, Gabe's object of desire is Rosemary, a girl he has known since kindergarten but who suddenly becomes attractive as they partner in a karate class.
The problem is that the script by Jennifer Flackett (Levin's wife) makes Gabe sound far more like an adult sitcom character than a yearning pre-adolescent, and the resulting contrivance deters the credibility of the storyline. The demi-budding romance between Gabe and Rosemary has moments of charm, especially as they travel into the forbidden territory of the West Village to find his father an apartment. Predictable elements lead the story to its inevitable ending, but it's all good-natured and almost too facile for the lack of resulting drama.
The cast is serviceable. Josh Hutcherson lends a precocious intelligence to Gabe, and Charlie Ray makes Gabe's obsession understandable as Rosemary. Cynthia Nixon (Miranda on "Sex in the City") and Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman on "The West Wing") lend unobtrusive support with their scant screen time as Gabe's parents. I frankly never heard of this movie before catching it on a United flight in November, but the 84 minutes sputter by relatively quickly with Tim Orr's crisp cinematography capturing a Manhattan that I thought existed only in Nora Ephron movies. The film also provides a nice excuse to resuscitate the 1970 Edison Lighthouse chestnut, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)".
The problem is that the script by Jennifer Flackett (Levin's wife) makes Gabe sound far more like an adult sitcom character than a yearning pre-adolescent, and the resulting contrivance deters the credibility of the storyline. The demi-budding romance between Gabe and Rosemary has moments of charm, especially as they travel into the forbidden territory of the West Village to find his father an apartment. Predictable elements lead the story to its inevitable ending, but it's all good-natured and almost too facile for the lack of resulting drama.
The cast is serviceable. Josh Hutcherson lends a precocious intelligence to Gabe, and Charlie Ray makes Gabe's obsession understandable as Rosemary. Cynthia Nixon (Miranda on "Sex in the City") and Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman on "The West Wing") lend unobtrusive support with their scant screen time as Gabe's parents. I frankly never heard of this movie before catching it on a United flight in November, but the 84 minutes sputter by relatively quickly with Tim Orr's crisp cinematography capturing a Manhattan that I thought existed only in Nora Ephron movies. The film also provides a nice excuse to resuscitate the 1970 Edison Lighthouse chestnut, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)".