Burning Annie

A thoroughly professional comedy, well paced, attractively photographed and smartly acted.

Burning Annie has funny moments, but it suffers from an overflow of characters.

There's too much going on in Burning Annie but one thing goes remarkably right: Ordynans's exceptionally canny script nails how thoroughly pop culture has colonized our sentiments.

Pic relies on nerdy world-weary irony to carry the day, but doesn't convincingly draw its characters.

Pays backhanded homage to Woody Allen via the travails of college loser Max (Gary Lundy), who fears that years of wallowing in "Annie Hall" have permanently poisoned his love life.

Even with a look at many of these people's relationship problems, there's nothing remotely interesting to listen to when they talk. In this case, it's the fault of the script, which doesn't provide much of anything interesting to keep it going for as long as it does.