I anticipated being blown away when I saw previews for this independent romantic comedy full of unknowns. After all, since romantic comedies, the easiest and cheapest kind of film to make, are the new entry level of filmmaking, there’s about a million of them on the market. Yet, somehow, like that one ridiculously lucky sperm, “I Love You, Don’t Touch Me!” broke through and hit paydirt. Yahoo.
Apparently writer/director Julie Davis took every romantic comedy ever made and combined them into this one movie. There’s the occasional good chuckle here and there and the characters are likable enough in their mildly neurotic manner. But it was all just so… derivative. The plot, for instance, which is generic to the point of triteness: Jewish princess shuns nice Jewish boy, stupidly falls for cliched scumbag cheating “older man,” realizes the Jewish boy is her Knight in Shining Armor after all. It’s literally that by-the-numbers. If you’ve ever seen ANY romantic comedy, you’ve seen this movie.
Yeah, it’s told primarily from the woman’s point of view – (gee, female writer/director; theatrical release. Could the forces of political correctness be running amuck?) – but even that’s been done before. Sarah Jacobson’s far superior “Mary Jane’s Not A Virgin Anymore” was essentially a grittier version of this movie.
Yet there it was; this no-name indie playing at the local metroplex. If indie films must become this vanilla in order to get mainstream distribution, what’s the point?
