THE NIGHT WE NEVER MET
(director/writer: Warren Leight; cinematographer: John Thomas; editor: Camilla Toniolo; music: Evan Lurie; cast: Matthew Broderick (Sam Lester), Annabella Sciorra (Ellen Holder), Kevin Anderson (Brian McVeigh), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Pastel), Justine Bateman (Janet Beehan), Michael Mantell (Aaron Holder), Christine Baranski (Lucy), Garry Shandling (Dental Patient), Ranjit Chowdhry (Cabbie); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Michael Peyser; Miramax (HBO Video); 1993)
“I think it works for a New York dating age audience better than it does for out of towners.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Debuting filmmaker writer-director Warren Leightweighs in with his offbeat version on replicating Woody Allen comedy films about New Yorkers with this lightweight cutesy would-be hipster New York rom/com. It’s about young city dwellers, thirtysomethings, who do not know each other but are sharing a Greenwich Village studio apartment on a time-share alternate day schedule. The three leads, sharing the apartment, are the slovenly yuppie stockbroker Kevin Anderson, bored housewife Annabella Sciorra. and the unlucky in love nice guy Matthew Broderick. The man behind the scheme is the unlikable Kevin, who desires to keep his bachelor pad, while moving into his upper-class fiancee Justine Bateman’s bigger apartment, for a few nights to play poker with the boys and escape from his woman for awhile. The frustrated Annabella needs a place to retreat from her dull hubby Michael Mantell and to finish her amateur paintings. While the sensitive Matthew, our hapless hero, is in the dumps after dumped by his performance artist girlfriend Jeanne Tripplehorn and wishes to be away from his noisy roommates.
The crowd-pleasing episodic film relies on situational comedy, as each tenant must face the music about their secret pad hook-up in their own way. I think it works for a New York dating age audience better than it does for out of towners.
Comedian Garry Shandling has a funny cameo as a wiseguy patient of dental hygienist Sciorra.
REVIEWED ON 9/10/2015 GRADE: B-