Cinephile.

CINEPHILE 

Were it not so consistently winning, Ira & Abby would be easy to dismiss as Dharma & Greg-meets-Woody Allen. It's got the setup of the former--uptight man impulsively marries free spirit while both sets of in-laws clash--and the neurotic sensibility of the latter (no film since the 1970s has made this many references to having an analyst). Luckily, the film has a secret weapon: Jennifer Westfeldt, the writer-actress behind the lesbian hit Kissing Jessica Stein.

Westfeldt pulls the same double duty here. Her Abby is the spacy Annie Hall to Ira (Chris Messina), the sort of neurotic Manhattanite who explains away his lack of pets with "I have a fear of perishables." They meet at a gym, where Abby proposes marriage in lieu of a membership plan, and Ira, charmed by her loopy rhythms, accepts. The only problem with this happy union is Ira's tendency to overthink things; brought up by chilly analyst parents (played by Robert Klein and Judith Light), he's constantly doubting and dissecting 

Abby's perfectly serene happiness. Can couples therapy work for this duo, or will Ira be overcome by analysis paralysis?

Westfeldt is an intelligent, breezy writer, and she's smoothly abetted by director Robert Cary (whose religious-themed film Save Me is currently making the gay festival rounds). Though there's a genuine appreciation for psychiatry here, it's notable that all of Ira's therapists are miserable while Abby seems to be hiding the secret to contentment behind her sphinxlike smile. Abby dispenses just as much advice as any of Ira's paid professionals, but she's listening to her heart, not her head. When Ira finally unravels his psychiatric knot, Westfeldt's message is clear: Sometimes you've got to shuck what everyone else thinks and strike out on your own.

In a season that has already seen Chuck and Larry play gay for financial gain, it's easy to be skeptical of Freshman Orientation, which posits that college freshman Clay (Sam Huntington) can score with more girls by initially pretending to be gay. The difference, though, between this film and Adam Sandler's is that the jokes here are born out of a smarter, more knowing sensibility. Also, bonus points for keeping the number of scary gay men who hit on our hero down to a minimum and, most of all, for including out actress Heather Matarazzo as a deliciously foulmouthed sorority pledge.

To better his ruse, Clay asks gay bartender Rodney (John Goodman) to make him into a stereotype; at the same time, closeted roommate Matt (Mike Erwin) bristles at the cultural appropriation. Meanwhile, Clay's ex-girlfriend Marjorie (Marla Sokoloff) is so desperate to distinguish herself from [the university herd that she clings to her sapphic side like a life preserver. Writer-director Ryan Shiraki gets the maximum comic mileage out of the idea of college as a dressing room where labels can be tried on or shrugged off, and though the film is ultimately a bit facile, it's a good deal warmer than Sandler's wannabe.

Frederic, the main character in the French drama The Man of My Life, is the sort of person for whom there is no easy label. He's a well-liked family man who's brought his clan to the French countryside for the summer, and just as his sex life with patient wife Frederique starts to wane, he meets Hugo, the gay guy next door. The analytical Hugo would seem to be freewheeling Frederic's opposite in so many ways, bur as Frederic finds himself increasingly drawn to the man, one wonders if there isn't something sexual they might have in common.

Viewers familiar with bad gay movies might be conditioned to expect a sex scene between the two, but The Man of My Life is not that explicit (whether its main character is even gay is not something this film feels the need to explain). Rather, through lovely imagery and a time-shifting narrative, it seeks to replicate Frederic's hidden, inchoate desires. Frederic and Hugo may be two sides of the same coin; the only problem is that Frederic can't make heads or tails of it.