|
Billie Golden (Isabel Rose) sings her heart out in a seedy dive in Queens, dreaming Technicolor dreams and dressing like Rita Hayworth. She wishes it were still the ’50s, which is the last time this plot (Rose wrote with director Robert Cary) was original. Billie thinks she loves Greg (Cameron Bancroft), but he wants her to change, whereas her down-and-out piano teacher Elliot (Andrew McCarthy), under his gruff exterior, loves her for who she is. Who will she choose? Would I be spoiling anything if I told you? Anything But Love rolls out every romantic-comedy love-triangle cliché there is. Set in the present, the film works best when it allows its visuals to drift off into a Freed Unit–inspired dream world. Billie’s fantasy dance numbers are swoon-worthy, and so are the gorgeous costumes. But as in this year’s more ambitious Down with Love, the retro pastiche fails to charm. And you can’t help thinking that Arthur Freed would never have set one of his musicals in Queens. (99 minutes) At the Kendall Square.
BY BROOKE HOLGERSON
|
