Loser

A country bumpkin at Columbia University (Jason Biggs) falls for a fellow student (Mena Suvari) who’s having an affair with their arrogant professor (Greg Kinnear). Writer/director Amy Heckerling adapts Billy Wilder’s The Apartment into a contemporary teen romance—much as she did with Jane Austen’s Emma, turning it into the sweetly hilarious Clueless. But sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t. This time, the wit and sweetness are missing, leaving only the clichés and contrivances, and the results are disastrous. Biggs and Suvari have charm but no chemistry, and the listless, labored parade of misunderstandings that keep them apart is excruciating to watch. There may have been some last-minute tampering, since the funniest jokes in the previews aren’t in the finished film.