OxfordPress.com

Grade: B-

Verdict: Part delightful romantic comedy, part ''In the Company of Women."

Details: Starring Andie MacDowell, Anna Chancellor and Imelda Staunton. Directed by John McKay. Rated R for sex and language. One hour, 55 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: Female friendships are usually misconstrued in movies. They're either huggy/kissy/teary-eyed or they're an all-out cat fight waiting to happen.

Happily, this isn't true of "Crush," a clever and entertaining British film with a woeful finale. Not because of what happens, exactly, but ''Crush" never truly faces all the intriguing issues it has raised. Instead, it opts for a too neatly tied up Hollywood ending.

The first three-fourths of the movie are breezily entertaining and often perceptive. Meet Kate (Andie MacDowell), the 40-ish headmistress at a posh private school somewhere in the picturesque English Cotswolds. Kate could just as well have been sent over by Central Caricature. She's the “spinster,” her hair tacked back in a severe bun and her wardrobe a sexless mix of prim orand childish.

She and her two best friends meet weekly to drink gin, smoke cigarettes, eat caramel crisps and compete for the saddest man story of the week.

Molly (Anna Chancellor, a kind of Maggie Smith in training) is the cynic of the group, a triple divorcée, having fallen for (in her words) ''Mr. Gay, Mr. Schoolboy and Mr. Unspeakable Lying Bastard." She's a successful doctor, the kind of woman who can save a first date who's choking on his dinner, then bite his head off before leaving him alone in the restaurant.

Janine (Imelda Staunton) is the more grounded one, an impossibly perky police officer, presumably divorced, with an adolescent son. She probably speaks for all three when she says, ''I'm embarrassed. I'm 42 and this is my life."

Pass the caramel crisps, please.

Kate is the one with the cheekbones. The three are both single and singularly verbal about what it's like to be unattached, female and in your 40s.

Then Kate goes to church and meets the new organist, Jed (Kenny Doughty). He's gorgeous, funny, talented . . . and 25.

They embark on a passionate, mutually enraptured relationship. Molly and Janine are surprised and supportive and a bit taken aback. Kate's new life brings on conflicted feelings. Along with being dreadfully envious, consciously or not, Molly and Janine have suffered a loss. Kate's relationship with Jed is now her priority. Though Kate still comes to the gin-laced confessionals, she's clearly in a different place. Her pals feel abandoned, left on their own in loserville.

All this makes the movie sound much more dour than it is. Most of ''Crush" is a clever and captivating romantic comedy with a welcome pinch of tartness (especially Chancellor, who's wonderfully caustic). But near the end, it takes an unexpected turn that knocks it out of joint. And first-time writer-director John McKay, though clearly talented, just isn't experienced enough to pull the picture completely back together.

Still, "Crush" offers a beguiling cast and three-quarters or more of a good movie. Which is a lot more than you get at a lot of flicks these days.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)