DOESN'T FEEL `REAL'; GIMMICKY FOX SERIES ABOUT FAMILY LIFE LEAVES TOO LITTLE ROOM FOR HONESTY.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

``Get Real'' seems hopelessly caught at cross purposes - its aim to be an honest depiction of a contemporary dysfunctional family gets hopelessly muddled in its synthetic melange of stylistic techniques taught in Filmmaking 101 and cliches. And what does it portend for the series that the only portions that seem, indeed, ``real'' are the parents' arguments and the kids' reactions to them?

Pointedly, the debut episode's opening, we soon discover, is unreal: Mary (Debrah Farentino) enjoying a passionate moment with her husband, Mitch (Jon Tenney). Given what we soon learn about their relationship, it's a major triumph that Mary's fantasies about Mitch are romantic and not violent.

Midclinch, the young couple is joined, unself-consciously, by their three loving teen-age kids - Meghan (Anne Hathaway), Kenny (Jesse Eisenberg) and Cameron (Eric Christian Olsen). The kids, in just one of ``Get Real's'' irksomely precious storytelling devices, all chime in on voice-over narration, even addressing the camera to drive home a particularly cute point; they finish one another's sentences and even saunter into one another's fantasy sequences. All that's missing is a subtitle reading, ``See how clever we are?''

Mitch and Mary married and had kids young, are swamped in their respective jobs and, in their mid-30s, have slowly drifted from one another. Kenny's a sardonic nerd; of the three kids, his narration is the most palatable. Cameron is a extreme-sports hell-raiser who tears through girlfriends - who spend the night with him over his parents' watery protestations - faster than Kleenex; he blows through four in tonight's episode alone, which means by season's end he'll have conquered the entire high school. Meghan smiles coyly at the camera as her voice-over informs us that she's both up for class valedictorian and ``I have this killer bod that I don't even have to work out for.'' Memo to executive producers: Consult your title at this point.

A lot gets crammed into the first episode. Meghan declares that, intellectual prowess aside, she's skipping college - ``I am doing this for me,'' she declares; ``Now, it's time to please myself'' (when, exactly, do kids do otherwise?). Kenny survives a beating at the hands of a bully; Cameron survives a car wreck. Mary and Mitch's attempts at romance are repeatedly rebuffed. Mitch's buddy's affair (with a Laker girl - again, aside from TV executives, for whom is this show supposed to be ``real''?) implodes during dinner at the Greens', when his aggrieved wife bursts in on them and, ``realistically,'' exposes her breasts to all. (With all the boob jokes in this pilot, the show might more honestly have been titled, ``Get Mammillae.'')

``Get Real'' trots out a huge array of technical gimmickry that obscures its human story - shock cuts and dissolves, swirling cameras, slow-motion, spiritual-seeming fade-to-whites. It's like watching a spin-art machine and a Cuisinart for an hour. Dennis McCarthy's music is rife with moaning female voices and acoustic guitars strumming sensitively, straining for a soulfulness that the artificial storytelling can't achieve. The show is brazen about wearing its hip influences on its sleeve, with references to ``Ally McBeal,'' ``Dawson's Creek'' and ``My So-Called Life'' (inside joke: Scott Winant, who directed ``Get Real's'' pilot, also executive-produced ``My So-Called Life'').

Most vexing is the fact that most of the characters exude a basic appeal - one wouldn't mind spending time with them if the writers and director could just tone down the frantic level of puppy-dog-desperate, eager-to-please storytelling. Farentino and Tenny's faces evoke their character's pain exquisitely (dialogue during their arguments have more of a lived-in edge than any of the rest of the material); Eisenberg and Hathaway are witty and empathetic.

In addition to all their other woes, the Greens throughout must contend with obstructive home remodeling efforts (with relentless comic asides by contractors and construction guys) that exact an ever-escalating cost. It's a pretty obvious metaphor for this family in transition, but with some smart tinkering (by the executive producers, not the remodelers), audiences may grow to want to see the Greens get their house in order.

THE FACTS

The show: ``Get Real.''

What: Hour-long comedy-drama about the travails of the modern family, seen through the eyes of three precocious teens.

The stars: Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, Eric Christian Olsen, Debrah Farentino, Jon Tenny, Christina Pickles.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: Two stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Anne Hathaway, Eric Christian Olsen and Jesse Eisenberg play teens whose parents have drifted apart in the family series ``Get Real.''