Puccini For Beginners

More like Woody Allen for beginners. In this variation, Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser) is the neurotic protagonist and dilettante writer with romantic problems. As the brief “Prologue” (which along with the “Acts” makes the film “operatic”) establishes, she’s having simultaneous affairs with Philip (Justin Kirk), a Columbia professor with degrees in German philosophy and mediocrity, and Philip’s ex-girlfriend Grace (Gretchen Mol), whose hobbies are glass blowing and crying. The explanation for this wacky state of affairs requires a litany of such Annie Hall and Manhattan mannerisms as ceaseless namedropping (Dante, Homer, Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, and, more to the point, Martha Stewart), revelatory comments by passing strangers, and the ceaseless self-analysis of the insipid characters. Everybody needs somebody, but that’s no excuse for a movie like this.