"She voted Republican, you should have known." Only in American movies does voting Right automatically equate to being a Nazi supporter or being a serial-killer. (Good luck to you if you've already been brainwashed by Hollywood flicks into adopting this mind-set.) There are many other examples of liberal indoctrination; it is persistent and all-present in PFB. Nearly every character behaves like a pre-election politician trying to rake in votes among his liberal electorate, by injecting as many asinine politically-correct statements into the vapid dialogue as they can; so much so in fact that half-way through this painfully unfunny turkey I was musing on whether the film's incompetent writer/director had the primary goal of entertaining people i.e. making them laugh (remember: a comedy, so that's her job), or whether this terribly lame script was merely an excuse for her to voice her painfully predictable and utterly mindless left-wing views. Either way, she is a buffoon with zero talent. After all, isn't this the same Maria who molested us with "The Incredibly Lame Adventure of Two Girls in Love"? PFB is bizarre pile of rom-com (all rom and no com) horse-manure about an unbearably unattractive/unappealing lesbian who is at the center of a love square, meaning that she has affairs with three people, almost all at once. In the absurd "reality" of this stupid movie, this ugly woman is desired and lusted over by every man and woman she meets – while Mol Gretchen (the ACTUAL beauty here) is the one getting cheated on and dumped by both men and women. Yes, I'd laugh at this cretinous role-reversal – if only it were intentional. It isn't.Elizabeth Reaser is such a mediocre and uncharismatic actress and – as I will mention at least ten times more – bearing such a horrendous face, that my nepotism radars immediately switched on. I had a quick look at her bio – and sure enough: her stepfather was nothing less than owner of the Detroit Pistons, a post that her mother took over later on. That explains quite a bit, doesn't it? Further proof that in Hollywood you can only make it if you have relatives in the industry, if you belong to a certain ethnic group, or if you have an upper-class background. (And if you fall into all three categories, a movie-career becomes virtually a certainty – should you want one.) This is quite ironic – and highly hypocritical – considering this movie's pro-Socialist pro-working-class message of equality, huh? Let me get this straight: the movie promotes anti-capitalism while seeking to make as much profit in a very competitive movie market? Furthermore: the movie portrays Republicans as greedy elitists – while the movie's writer/director hires some rich preppie daughter from a powerful and wealthy American family to play a left-wing lesbian? Perhaps one needs to be daft in the extreme in order to "understand" liberal ideology and the self-contradicting means by which they attempt to impose their views on the rest of us who lack this extreme daftness.But hip social issues aren't Maria's only pointless obsession. The script is also burdened, saddled, and ultimately crushed by Maria's laughable desire to be taken seriously as an intellectual; that much is obvious. Instead of focusing on making the movie FUNNY (something she's clearly incapable of anyway), this fool tries to impress us with pseudo-intellectual piffle, while making boring left-wing insinuations every 5 minutes – as if Manbearpig itself had hired her for the job. The script fails in every department, however. The characters aren't believable; they are politically-correct cardboard cut-outs, walking indie-film clichés. They aren't even remotely funny; not even slightly amusing, and very rarely interesting. The dialog sounds fake and forced, not much better than what one gets in a typical episode of "Friends". Credibility is stretched to breaking point as the entire script relies heavily on absurd coincidences – while Maria desperately tries to justify these too-numerous-to-mention chance meetings with some pretentious, unconvincing gobbledygook about why Freud thought there was "no such thing as coincidence". Besides, who gives a rat's bum what Freud thought about anything not related to psychoanalysis? It's like quoting what Plato thought was the best way to cook spaghetti. Or what Agassi thinks about French poetry.And nice try, attempting to portray New York's left-wing lesbian "elite" as smart and well-educated. New York City is a place of high imbecility, not at all anymore the city in which "if you can make it here you can make it anywhere". Make what? Bad movies?

"Puccini for Beginners" is yet another independent relationship comedy. I remember a long line of them coming out probably around the same time this one did. We have love triangles and writers waxing on neurotically about love and relationships.The lead is a writer, a lesbian who is unable to admit her true feelings, and she goes from a break up to a man. He's a philosophy professor who loves everything about her that it doesn't matter that she's a lesbian. In addition to their differences in sexual orientation, there are other love entanglements that get in their way - "with all the twists and turns of a classic Puccini" as the DVD case says. I would agree with that if the twists and turns in Puccini operas are obvious and uninspired with contrived culminations.I enjoyed the casting, Elizabeth Reaser has a fresh face and isn't your typical romantic comedy lead. I fell in love with Justin Kirk as Andy Botwin in "Weeds" and I fell in love with him again here. The actresses who play her friends actually look like regular friends. But the cast wasn't able to save the characters. We have a lesbian with the prosaic name of Allegra, a writer whose neurotic, and a philosophy professor who pontificated on her vocabulary and the virtues of love and relationships. And none of them had interesting character traits.The characters, the love triangles and the imperious dialogue were all flat. And the references to Puccini? Allegra likes going to the opera. So does Philip. I think that sums up all the imaginative aspects of "Puccini for Beginners".

I liked this film from the outset because of the screwball/Woody Allenish style of it but it really kicked in for me with the following paraphrased quote: Allegra: Phillip Roth is a misogynist...I'll buy the first round if you don't tell anyone about Martha Stewart.Philip: I'll buy the second round if you can think of something more original to say about Phillip Roth.The word "misogynist" is overused and misused by some women and it was nice to hear it dealt with so easily.This film has a potential to be misandrist/women-empowering but it never really goes there which is GREAT. Quoting Allegra: "Just because I love women doesn't mean I hate men." "Puccini" points out a lot of irritating female behavior by having Allegra play the man-stereotype (who happens to be a woman), thereby vindicating men of some of their "flaws". Reaser WAS "like a man" but an interesting, good, CHARMing man with some of his more understandable flaws, like fear of commitment and romantic curiosity. I've never seen Elizabeth Reaser before but I loved her choices and acting style in this film. She was cool, understated and charming and she made nice underwear choices. She was the constantly-criticized man with women and the irritatingly instructive but inconsistent woman with a man. Following are two quotes from her character to Philip: "When a woman runs out of a restaurant that's your cue to run after her." "Phillip, when a woman says she has to leave a restaurant you have to let her leave." I liked the sushi commentators and the lonely lesbians drinking their coffee in unison. When Allegra vomits on Philip's shoes, the sound-effect is masterful. Gretchen Mol is charming and I liked the absurdity of the battling men in the background while she is mouthing the usual, boring, general complaints about men. I appreciate that Allegra gently disagrees with her. At the closing party, while Allegra is talking to Philip and looking for her coat, a mating couple wanders in. Samantha's fiancée was entertainingly stupid. Nell, the ex-girlfriend, was magnifico. "Puccini" had a lot of nice comic touches.Allegra's character arc follows Redford's in "Out Of Africa", without the lions, but Reaser has the humor that Redford needed. She is unwilling to commit for reasons that are less idealistic and more vague but, in the end, comes around to the idea that commitment has it's charms when it's the right person. She IS a commitment-phobe but, like Redford's character, for most of the right reasons. She's not stupid enough to LOOK for commitment but she's not inhuman enough to live without romance and passion.Maria Maggenti has created something fresh, classic and modern here. (She seems to know a few things about women). "Puccini For Beginners" does away with a lot of feminist cliché and propaganda which is refreshing as hell.

I really wanted to like "Puccini for Beginners" but it is a heavily flawed film.1. It is not funny enough. I don't think I laughed out loud once and I only chuckled a few time.2. The main character is not sympathetic enough. She is cheating on both her boyfriend and her girlfriend.3. It steals too much from the Woody Allen films "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" but is not nearly as clever as it wants to be.4. There is hardly any opera music or reference to opera. With a title that contains the name "Puccini," I was expecting opera to play a bigger part.Despite that, there are some mildly funny parts and the cast is attractive, especially Gretchen Moll. I wish she had been in the film more."Puccini for Beginners" is not a really bad film but it is disappointing because it could have been much better. If you are looking for a good lesbian themed comedy, watch "Gray Matters." It was much funnier.