
DATE: Thursday, May 29, 1997                TAG: 9705280050

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie Review

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

``ADDICTED TO LOVE'' HAS FEW LAUGHS

ADDICTED to love, or to quirkiness?

As a so-called romantic comedy, ``Addicted to Love'' has all the charm of the Marquis de Sade's prom date with Lucretia Borgia. This is heavy, borderline psychotic, stuff.

Consider the situation. A French restaurant owner in New York is living in an orgasm-infested paradise with his new blonde playmate when things start happening to him. A trained monkey plants a lipstick smear on his collar. Children spray expensive perfume on him in the park. Women's panties are hidden beneath the couch in his apartment. All of these, of course, plant suspicion of hanky-panky in the mind of his resident lover.

And there's more.

Roaches are unleashed in his restaurant while the New York Times food critic is there doing a review. The French guy ends up with two broken arms, encased in a body cast.

Are you laughing yet?

The audience for ``Addicted to Love'' may well be puzzled as to when the laughs are supposed to start. They'll still be wondering when ``The End'' flashes across the screen.

Matthew Broderick, the boy-man with those woeful puppy-dog eyes, is yet again cast as an out-of-it victim. Indeed, the film has much the same sick humor as ``The Cable Guy,'' another comedy that was too heavy to be funny. Here, Broderick plays an astronomer from the Midwest whose girl (Kelly Preston, who's the real-life Mrs. John Travolta) ditches him and runs off to New York to be with our French lover (a singularly unappealing Tcheky Karyo, who seems to be doing a bad impression of Maurice Chevalier).

Broderick follows her, breaks into an abandoned building across from her new love nest, and spies on the love trysts.

The usually cute Meg Ryan is the ex-love of the French guy, and is psychotic in her pursuit of revenge against him. She's the driving force for all the pranks, while Broderick observes and reacts in horror.

Since this is billed as a ``romantic comedy,'' it's inevitable that the two weirdos will end up in love. It could hardly be declared a happy ending. These two had better call Dr. Ruth immediately.

Ryan was generally known as the cutest thing in movies until Sandra Bullock came along. One supposes that ``Addicted to Love'' is an effort to break away from typecasting, but she hasn't dispensed with her pert outfits or her adorable pug-nosed twitches. Perhaps she can't help being cute, even when playing this el-sicko being.

Maureen Stapleton (Oscar winner for ``Reds'') makes a brief, pointless appearance as Ryan's grandmother. (A sequence obviously concocted to give Ryan's character some much-needed sympathy). Dominick Dunne, the novelist father of director Griffin Dunne, has a bit as the food critic.

This is Griffin Dunne's first directorial effort. He shows no hint of knowing how to handle dark comedy.

If you sit all the way through ``Addicted to Love,'' you may need an analyst all your own. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``Addicted to Love''

Cast: Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston, Tcheky Karyo,

Maureen Stapleton, Dominick Dunne

Director: Griffin Dunne

MPAA rating: R (some vulgar language, partly obscured nudity)

Mal's rating: One 1/2 stars