The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 121

on Loving and lusting in Miami, with but the veneer of Woody jfcjjr jj tfj ssi Ei P. mm Review: Film MIAMI RHAPSODY Produced by Barry Jossen and David Frankel, directed and wnt- ten by David Frankel, photography by Jack Watlner, music by Mark teham, distributed by Hoi- iywood Pictures. Running time: 1:35 Gwyn. Sarah Jessica Parker Matt Gil Bellows. Nina Mia Farrow Vic Paul Mazursky Antonio Antonio Banderas Parent's guide: PG-13 (adult themes) Showing at area theaters whether romance and fidelity can survive the pull of lust.

To ponder this issue she doesn't have to look beyond the boundaries of her own family. Her sister Leslie, newly married to a Miami Dolphins player, discovers he's a cheapskate and starts cheating on him. Her brother uses his wife's pregnancy and his sexual appetite to excuse his dalliance with a stunningly beautiful model. Most devastating of all for Gwyn is the discovery that her parents, supposedly partners in an ideal marriage, have extracurricular interests. Her father (Paul Mazursky) sees his travel agent and, even though the relationship is going nowhere, finds it difficult to break off.

Her mother (Mia Farrow) takes up with the male nurse (Antonio Banderas) who cares for the matriarch of this very busy family. As the jammed scenario suggests, there is very little room to offer more than a passing reference and a superficial joke in exploring these entanglements. An ensemble piece can fragment without writing of the highest craftsmanship to carry it the kind Woody Allen manages without seeming effort. Frankel doesn't have it, a failing in which he certainly has plenty of company. By Desmond Ryan INQUIRER MOVIE CRITIC Last Sunday, Miami was the setting for an ax murder masquerading as the Super Bowl.

This weekend, it's the scene of another crime: shameless grand theft in the form of Miami Rhapsody. The unwary victim of the heist is Woody Allen, whose style, themes, predicaments and characters have been recycled in Miami Rhapsody to such a degree that Miami Ripoff would be a more honest title. David Frankel's featherweight debut as a director has an engaging cast that gives his slick and occasionally amusing material more than its due. But once you get past the fluff, Miami Rhapsody mostly shows us what a Woody Allen film about modern romance and sexual anxiety would be like if Woody had nothing to do with the production. The legions of fans of Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters will find their appreciation of these cherished films much increased by the klutzy echoes in Miami Rhapsody.

Frankel's background is in television, and it shows in the pat one-liners that top off each scene and make one expect the phony chuckles of a laugh track. Some of his pert Mia Farrow (left) plays a mother who stuns her daughter (Sarah Jessica Parker) by revealing her infidelity. zingers are funny, but their sitcom style is evident in the way they milk the predicament rather than spring from a character we have come to recognize and care about. The pivotal situation in Miami Rhapsody involves Gwyn Marcus (Sarah Jessica Parker), a smart young advertising copy writer who has decided to get married to her longtime boyfriend. Miami Rhapsody is a romantic comedy that leads Gwyn to question Farrow is a decided asset to Miami Rhapsody, but here presence also carries all the associations of the 13 movies she made with Allen.

More important, while Parker brings a measure of charm to Gwyn's understandable confusion, she simply doesn't have the presence to carry the comic burden imposed by her anchoring role in the film. Miami Rhapsody was filmed in various locations around the city, but it only fitfully catches the pulsating vitality of a place that seems more Latin than American. The film is easy on the eye and the ear, but Frankel's main achievement is in reminding us how difficult it is to bring off this kind of comedy. For all his off-screen, massively publicized battles with Farrow, this remains one arena in movies where no one can touch Woody. 'Boys on the Side' isn't quite apt; boys are out of the picture Review: Film BOYS ON THE SIDE Produced by Arnon Milchan, Steven Reu- iher and Herbert Ross, directed by Herbert Ross, written by Don Roos, distributed by Warner Bros.

Running time: 1:20 Jane. Whoopi Goldberg Robin Mary touise Parker Holly Drew Barrymore Abe Matthew McConaughey Aiex i. James Rernar Parent's guide: (brief nudity, sexual Candor, sex, profanity) at area theaters By Carrie Rickey INQUIRER MOVIE CRITIC 1 Fj as there been any time in movie I history when the sexes have been I so segregated on screen? It's boys III and girls untogether to such an extent that by now Hollywood has institutionalized the gal movie Thelma Louise, Bad Girls) and the guy movie (Clear and Present Danger, The Cowboy Way), direct-marketing to one gender by making the other superfluous to the plot. If men and women aren't together in our filmed fantasy, what does that say about our lived reality? Curiously, these exclusively male and for-females-only pictures are the norm at a time when men's-only institutions largely have been declared unconstitutional To oimtp that fnmmiQ AtrtoriVfm rrictoT. A.

Riley: "What a revoltin' development this is." While sex-segregated movies certainly make sense in the realm of Vietnam combat films or mother-daughter melodramas, the recent spate of chick movies and guy films seem more motivated by studio marketing demands than by narrative logic. Case in point: Herbert Ross' new chickflick Boys on the Side, a follow-up to his all-crying, all-girl hit Steel Magnolias. For its trio of weepy, prickly characters, you might call Ross' latest effort Wilting Cactus Flowers. However heartfelt the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Mary Louise Parker, and both are magnificent, even actresses of their resourcefulness cannot elevate Don Roos' scenario much above its sisterhood-is- tearful platitudes. Goldberg is the wise brunette, Parker the nominal redhead and Drew Barrymore the bubblehead blonde in this movie that takes the three-girls-on-the-road formula of How to Marry a Millionaire or Three Coins in the Fountain and wrings it for pathos.

The film's plot, if it can be distinguished as such, is like a month of Montel and Geraldo. Here we have "Women Who Love Their Abusers," "Confessions of an Unwed Mother," "Lesbians Who Love Straight Gals," "How to Tell Friends You Have AIDS," "Surviving the Death of a Sibling," "Women Who Abuse Their Abusers," and "Cops Who See BOYS on Page 16 i It's a road show, with Drew Barrymore (left), Whoopi Goldberg and a companion westward bound. The film is targeted for females only. Friday, February 3,1995 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER.