Film Comedy. Theatre release July 19, 2002. Video/DVD release January
21, 2003. Miramax.
Cast features Aaron Stanford, Sigourney Weaver,
Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter, Robert Iler.
Directed by Gary Winick.
Written by Heather McGowan and Niels Mueller.
Winner, Sundance Film Festival 2002 - Best Dramatic Direction.
E FIRST SEE Oscar Grubman (Stanford) on a train traveling from his upstate New York prep
school to Thanksgiving holidays at his father's (Ritter) residence in New York City's Upper
East Side. Oscar is fifteen and he is in love. But he is not an ordinary fifteen-year-old
love-struck American preppie. He spends summers with his mother in France and has absorbed
much of that culture. He is fluent in the language and looks to Voltaire as a guide to life.
His standards are high. He finds American girls shallow. But not American women. So he is
in love with an accomplished, intelligent, and attractive woman. His
stepmother, Eve (Weaver), to be exact. He is not unaware of the potential
for disaster in this situation. Should he tell her? Can he tell her?
And what will happen if he does? The film follows his wobbling and
often hilarious journey to the inevitable confrontation of desire and
reality. We last see Oscar on the train returning to school, somewhat
enlightened and more accepting of his place in the world.
Stanford. . . assumes Oscar's uncommonly intelligent, well-spoken
and mature airs with utter ease and credibility and he creates one of
the most distinctive young screen characters in recent memory.
--Variety
National print media reviews
People,August 5, 2002, p. 34.
Elle, August 2002, p. 57. Full page review
with photos.
Vogue, July 2002, p. 100.
"The film's director, Gary Winick, takes the kind of playful approach
to sex that we're used to getting in a European film. But he balances it
with a very American sweetness. Coaxing a charismatic performance out
of Stanford (who's in his mid twenties but eerily convincing as a
teenager), Winick has made a film that's compassionate without being too
sentimental."