Easy

Lately, lighthearted flicks about single urban chicks looking for love in a world of noncommittalguys flood our newsstands, televisions, and Cineplex screens. Easy confidently rises above the ranks of these romantic comedies, offering a less glossy, more penetrating vision of lovelorn life.

Jamie Harris, portrayed with sparkling intelligence, by actress Marguerite Moreau, is a neurotic, bright 25-year-old with a career naming peculiar consumer products. Though she gives them their identities, she's rather confused about her own. After dating a string of jerks, she's bewildered about whom to trust or how to find true intimacy. When two seemingly honorable men orbit around her, Jamie must confront what she is most afraid of. Asin Shakespearean comedies, writer/director Jane Weinstock's playful, nuanced script adroitly tosses competing desires up in the air, offering audiences the delicious pleasure of watching characters squirm and wriggle before everything falls into place.

Weinstock constructs a romantic, but not romanticized, world, where sex is earthy and real, hair is unkempt, social norms are gloriously turned on their heads, and smart single girls have to work extra hard to get what they want. Easy is a moving and delightful foray into that most mysterious of all realms: contemporary relationships.