Who’s more romantic, an Englishman or a Frenchman? That’s the crux of the debate at Evelyn’s dinner party; a stuffy affair with a roomful of young intellectuals trying to impress each other as much as they impress themselves. Sam (co-director Sam Serafy) insists on maintaining his coldly formal attitude towards nearly everything, even when provoked by Jonathan (Jon Tindle), a coolly self-confident Englishman who’s just been dumped. But Jonathan’s attitude really gets under the skin of the evening’s host Evelyn (Carol Monda), who finds herself attracted to the blunt-speaking Brit, in spite of — or maybe because of — his rejection of virtually everything women consider romantic. Arguing relentlessly that the commonly accepted dating rituals are fraudulent, Jonathan slyly pushes Evelyn’s buttons before driving home his point with an ironic act of chivalry. Though there are some clever moments in “The Gentleman,” they’re undercut by the fact that not only do these characters have very little charisma to speak of, but their wealthy fast lane world is extremely difficult to identify with. No one likes snobs and this movie’s chock full of ’em… from both sides of the English Channel.
