200 Cigarettes

Trying to cash in on the '80s-nostalgia bandwagon, this New Year's Eve ensemble comedy, set in 1981 Manhattan, offers a vintage soundtrack, some memorable fashion statements, and most notably a talented ensemble that's pretty much all dressed up with no place to go. The large cast--featuring such bleeding-edge actors as Christina Ricci, Ben Affleck, Paul Rudd, Janeane Garofalo, Jay Mohr, and a surprisingly demure Courtney Love--does manage to exude some charm, but in all the cross-cutting between numerous subplots we never get a chance to spend much time with anyone. Just when the story about two friends (Rudd and Love) who decide to have sex starts to get interesting, we're thrust into the adventures of two Long Island girls (Ricci and an uncannily authentic Gaby Hoffman) lost in SoHo. And then when they get picked up by two punk boys, it's off to the uncomfortable second date between an egotistical actor (Mohr) and the young virgin he just deflowered last night (Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn's daughter), and then off to even more characters, etc. The closest we get to a focal point in the film is a dizzyingly hysterical Martha Plimpton (better than she's been in a while), the hostess of the party everyone's going to--except no one's shown up yet, sending Plimpton into neurotic rages about crab dip going bad. Longtime casting director Risa Bramon Garcia, making her directorial debut, exhibits a fine hand with her actors--she succeeds in making Courtney Love a believably insecure firebrand who when drunk sings along to "Through the Eyes of Love"--but trips herself up by diluting her characters' misadventures. As a result, Affleck's charmingly goofy bartender gets lost in the shuffle, and Garofalo's part is reduced to a glorified cameo (though she lights up the screen when she's on). Make sure, though, you take in the wide-eyed Hudson, who at times seems to be channeling her mother's mannerisms and speech inflections to great if eerie comic effect. Nobody's mixed innocence, sexiness, and physical comedy so deftly since... well, Goldie Hawn. Also, look for Elvis Costello in a brief but pivotal cameo. --Mark Englehart