Better Than Chocolate

Director Anne Wheeler breaks no new ground with this insipid romantic comedy. It's love at first sight between 19-year-old aspiring writer Maggie (Karyn Dwyer) and street artist Kim (Christina Cox). In an embarrassingly dreary comic scene, they have their first sex in a parked van while it's being ticketed and towed. The need to hide the Truth about their relationship from Maggie's visiting mother (Wendy Crewson) drives what passes for a plot. Helping the film achieve its 101-minute running time is good-hearted Judy (Peter Outerbridge), a pre-op transgendered cabaret singer who's in love with the owner of the lesbian bookstore where Maggie works.

This hot pink placebo of a film would be savorless if it weren't for the cast. Outerbridge and Crewson are the hardest-working actors; Dwyer and Cox more than make up for their vapid roles by frequently simulating sex. By the end, several clay pigeons -- including homophobic scum and Canadian censors -- have been paraded past and disposed of, along with the characters' problems, so that everyone can leave the theater feeling good. So feel good already.

-- Chris Fujiwara