Kissing Jessica Stein

Delightfully unpredictable, hilarious comedy with wonderful performances that tug at your heart in ways that utterly transcend gender labels.

The screenplay is written with a thinking audience in mind, the dialogue sparkles, the characters leap off the screen in full three-dimensionality, and the cliches are kept to a bare minimum.

Pays off in laugh-out-loud lines, adorably ditsy but heartfelt performances, and sparkling, bittersweet dialogue that cuts to the chase of the modern girl's dilemma.

Not about sex; it's about leaps of faith, at work, in love, in life.

It all works on the level of a sprightly sitcom: lesbianism for the Lucy-and-Ethel crowd.

One of the film's strengths is that nobody -- male, female, gay, straight or Jewish mother -- is reduced to stereotype.

The actual finale, which so betrays what's come before it that it leaves one walking out of the theater holding a grudge against what was.