Bostonians have celebrated the city's rebirth as a shooting location for filmmakers. Had they endured Valerie Weiss's locally made Losing Control, I suspect most would welcome another molasses disaster. In it, Samantha (Miranda Kent), a cute-as-a-button Harvard scientist, rejects a marriage proposal from her China-bound beau Ben (Reid Scott). Alone and insecure, she devises an experiment to determine whether her man is "the one." What this should amount to, by Samantha's logic, is a succession of vigorous sexual encounters with suitable bachelors. But Weiss is weirdly chaste in her heroine's depiction, bordering on infantilism. Everything about Losing Control, from its bland cast to the twee Norah Jones-esque soundtrack, is so sunny that its stilted one-liners and stock comedy clichés almost feel refreshing. With its labored parade of polygamists, neurotic Jewish parents, and projectile semen explosions, Control offers nothing new. This one should have stayed in a test tube.
