Head Over Heels [DVD] [2001]

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Take Hollywood romantic comedy at its fluffiest, stir in a few Farrelly Brothers-style bodily-function jokes, season with pratfalls, add a soupcon of Hitchcock and you've got Head Over Heels, the perfect way to while away 85 minutes without putting the least strain on your brain cells. Our heroine, Amanda, is a shy retiring young lady with a dusty museum job and a non-existent love-life. (She's played by the dishy blonde Monica Potter, which gives you a fair idea of this movie's grip on reality). Having moved into a palatial Manhattan apartment (yeah, right) shared with four wannabe supermodels she meets--via a randy Great Dane--the handsome guy from across the courtyard. But it seems he has a deep, dark secret in his life. Mark Waters' film gets a lot of mileage out of poking fun at the bubble-headed attitudes of the model girls, which might well provoke mutterings about pots and kettles in more censorious quarters. But the whole confection's so innocuous and eager to please that it's hard to stay as irritated with it as it deserves. Potter (or occasionally her body double) executes her pratfalls gamely, her flatmates pose elegantly, and Mr Maybe-Right Freddie Prinze Jr grins boyishly--even if his subsequent metamorphosis into an action hero takes a bit of swallowing. Waters' direction keeps things moving briskly enough to prevent us musing on the idiocy of the whole enterprise. The insert inside the box suggests that "if you enjoyed this title" you should try Taxi Driver or Being John Malkovich. Could someone at Columbia TriStar be having a little joke? On the DVD: not much to mention. There's a trailer, brief cast and director biogs, production notes and a 12-minute shooting-of featurette in which, as usual, everybody was just wonderful and they all adored each other from the get-go. Anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound ensure a suitably glossy presentation. --Philip Kemp