Two Ninas

Kvetching budding novelist Marty (Office Space's Ron Livingston) goes from woefully dateless to downright duplicitous when he starts seeing two women named Nina (Cara Buono and Amanda Peet). It's a contrived, Three's Company-ish plot set amid the neon nightlife of New York City and narrated -- sometimes amusingly, sometimes excessively -- by Marty's smarmy best buddy (Bray Poor). However, within this by-the-book romantic-comedy, first-time writer/director Neil Turitz limns shaded, thoroughly engaging performances from an amiable cast. Likewise, his gift for scripting Gen X-inflected banter (one running gag finds the characters pronouncing "asshole" as "as-sho-lé") never eclipses the surprisingly earnest themes about commitment, forgiveness, and the eccentricities of love. Although the formula that solves this triangle is as familiar as Pythagoras's, Two Ninas still adds up to one guilty pleasure. Screens at the Copley Place Wednesday, September 15 at 7:30 and 10 p.m. and Thursday, September 16 at 1, 3, and 5 p.m.

-- Alicia Potter

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Film Festival Feature Films

| The Minus Man | The Tavern | Black Eyed Dog | The Last September | A Wake in Providence | Man of the Century | Pups | Dreaming of Joseph Leeds | Wisdom of Crocodiles | That's The Way I Like It | American Beauty | Mifune | Black Cat, White Cat | Hit and Runway | All the LIttle Animals | Me Myself I | The Alchemist and the Virgin | Trash | Old Man River | The Poet and the Con | Snow Falling on Cedars | Guinevere | East is East | American Movie | Rivers of Babylon | Two Ninas | Rats | Keepers of the Frame | The Runner |

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More Boston Film Festival information, film descriptions, and show times

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