| Call it Buffy the
Culinary Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar, who usually runs
around staking vampires and fighting demons, turns cute and
cuddly as an aspiring chef in this magical-realist comedy
that borrows a page--heck, whole chapters--from Like
Water for Chocolate. Out at the market one day, Gellar
stumbles on both a magical crab and the babelicious Sean
Patrick Flanery who, wouldn't you know it, is opening up a
posh restaurant at Bendel's department store (actually, the
two have been brought together by fairy godfather
Christopher Durang). Odd and implausible circumstances give
these two cuties more opportunities to moon at each other,
and suddenly Gellar's cooking takes off--turns out all her
nicey-nice feelings towards Flanery are going into her
cooking, with the help of that quiet but powerful little
crab. Gellar's almost-closed restaurant starts to thrive,
and her desserts begin making everyone horny. A cute premise
that never really takes off, Simply Irresistible
glides along on Gellar's charisma alone; in her off hours,
Buffy certainly can be the lighthearted girl next door, and
Gellar works to give some depth to her one-dimensional
character. Flanery, though, while appealing at times, plays
up his character's commitment-phobia to irritating degrees.
Chock full of fairy-tale elements that never really come
together (is that crab really necessary?), Irresistible
does boast charming performances by Patricia Clarkson and
Dylan Baker as Flanery's secretary and boss, respectively.
However, it's a little odd to see these two, who scored
raves for two serious and harrowing art-house flicks
(Clarkson in High Art, Baker in Happiness)
doing the light-and-fluffy romantic comedy thing. |
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