Relax . . .  It's Just Sex

If only it were that much. Following the baleful examples of such coyly transgressive films as The Opposite of Sex and 200 Cigarettes, P.J. Castellaneta's smug and smarmy modern-relationship comedy tries to be oh so hip about alternative lifestyles but barely reaches the Hallmark Card level of emotional maturity. Set in LA and loosely told from the point of view of lovelorn, wanna-be playwright Vincey (Mitchell Anderson, who resembles Zonker in Doonesbury), it relates the touchy-feely misadventures of his extended family of friends and fellow misfits. Included are Jennifer Tilly's shrill and matronly Tara ("I'll stop being a fag hag when you stop being a fag!"), Lori Petty's Woody Harrelson clone Robin ("I'm gonna get my truck!"), and the requisite crew of multicultural gay and straight whiners. Relax gets tense halfway through in a real shocker of a sequence that cuts away the psychobabble to reveal a core of rage and pain from which it never quite recovers, the hugs-all-around attitude notwithstanding. Despite some nifty one-liners ("It's sex if I'm coming and there are other people in the room"), Sex is just too feel-good to be true.

-- Peter Keough