Just A Kiss

An affair between friends (Marley Shelton, Ron Eldard) destroys their relationships with their respective lovers (Patrick Breen, who also wrote the script, and Kyra Sedgwick), which causes ripples that embroil other friends and even strangers. Breen’s script has deadpan wit, though it becomes a little labored as it goes along, and there’s a sense in the last act that Breen is flailing for ideas to keep things going. Director Fisher Stevens smoothes out the bumps in the story, and the cast is excellent (others include Marisa Tomei as a conniving waitress, Taye Diggs and Sarita Choudhury as a couple swept up in the crisis, and theater legend Zoe Caldwell as Shelton’s imperious mother). Stevens and Breen use sly flashes of animation for emphasis, painting over the action like Richard Linklater in Waking Life.