Loverboy

First-time director Kevin Bacon (Mr. Sedgwick) cleverly maintains a balance of discomfiting and familiar by jumping nimbly around Emily's life.

Kevin Bacon's witty and effective, yet squirm-inducing, directorial debut.

It all adds up to an unfortunate misfire: a film at odds with both its source material and itself.

Almost until the end, Loverboy maintains a shaky integrity. But in its final moments it caves in to convention with a mawkish epilogue to a story that ends with an appalling act of selfishness.

Bacon the director indulges his wife, letting her play crazy and emotional in a showy performance that screams "serious actress."

The real trouble is at its core, with an over-the-top performance from Sedgwick that borders on Baby Jane campiness.

Bacon lavishes his camera on her (Sedgwick) in various states of dress and undress, but the script, by Hannah Shakespeare - talk about having to live up to a name! - is a cheat. It rarely expands on the boy's crises in having to deal with such a mother.