USA,
1993, 105 min
Shown in 1994
CREDITS
- dir
-
Alan Jacobs
- prod
-
Jane Hernandez, Alan Jacobs
- scr
-
Alan Jacobs
- cam
-
Phil Parmet
- editor
-
John Nutt
- cast
-
Laura San Giacomo, Paul Rhys, Michael O’Keefe, Cristi Conaway, Fisher Stevens
- source
-
International Creative Management
-
COMMENTS
One of three Opening Night films. Laura San Giacomo and Alan Jacobs in person.
OTHER
She’s gorgeous, smart, well-heeled (and well-soled—she owns a shoe store), but Nina, married though she be, isn’t especially happy. When her best friend launches blithely into an extramarital adventure with a hipster espresso jockey (the cute-guy movie job of the ’90s), Nina’s not sure if she’s dismayed or intrigued. That is, until her husband leaves town for three weeks and she happens to meet a handsome Brit in Golden Gate Park. The film plays out in flashback as Nina, her lover and her best friend tell all to a newspaper reporter who’s researching one of those pop-zeitgeist articles on marriage and fidelity. His subjects are San Franciscans of the sleekest and chicest variety, but romantic entanglements are rarely as neat as the characters’ glossy exteriors would presage. The charm of this comedy of manners is in the complications and uncertainties, the awkward and unexpected moments. Although Laura San Giacomo, as Nina, is no slouch in the vamp department (she was the sultry sister in sex, lies, and videotape), she enriches her role with appealing vulnerability and confusion. As the lover, Paul Rhys (Theo van Gogh in Robert Altman’s Vincent & Theo) adds subtlety to his dreamboat character and the entire cast is easy on the eyeballs. A first feature by San Franciscan Alan Jacobs (formerly in-house filmmaker at Apple Computer), Nina Takes a Lover uses locations in the city as perfect romantic-comedy backdrops.
—Lydia Freynal
FACTOID #65
The combined running time for all the films in the Festival is approximately 310,000 minutes. Or to put it another way, 5,167 hours. That’s about 215 days of viewing, 24 hours a day, with no breaks.
