Crush

The headmistress at an English school (Andie MacDowell, horribly miscast and looking like she knows it) carries on with a young church organist (Kenny Doughty); her two best friends (Imelda Staunton, Anna Chancellor) try to break up the romance before they both die of envy. Writer/director John McKay’s film is, in its way, virulently sexist; it says (1) there’s no evil too low for a woman acting in the name of friendship, and (2) whatever you do to a woman, she’ll forgive you in the name of love. Fortunately (I guess), McKay’s script is so patently false—with its maudlin contrivances, sloppy pretensions, mean-spirited nastiness, and lewd vulgarity (with stupid jokes about Doughty’s “organ”)—that it can’t be taken seriously. Actors mutter their lines as if ashamed of how bad they are.