Chasing Allegra

Gretchen Mol as Grace and Elizabeth Reaser as Allegra in “Puccini for Beginners,” written and directed by Maria Maggenti.

Chasing Allegra

An operatic romantic comedy from Maria Maggenti

BY Sarah D. Schulman

In “Puccini for Beginners,” her first full-length feature since 1995’s marginally acclaimed “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls In Love,” writer/director Maria Maggenti has created an operatic and fun, if somewhat flawed, twist on the romantic comedy.

In writing, the plot seems too pregnant to play out smoothly in a 90-minute window. Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser, the raven-haired pregnant beauty with the Mona Lisa smile from “The Family Stone”) is a published author living in the West Village. Though bouncy and alluring, she is a bit neurotic and intellectually pretentious—at one point, she actually utters the phrase “youthful pulchritude.”

In keeping with the spirit of opera, the film is divided into three acts bookended by prologue and epilogue and begins at the end—Allegra inexplicably in a catering uniform, facing her angry girlfriend and boyfriend with a sheepish look. “Like everything else in my life,” begins Allegra’s voice-over narration, “it started with two things—opera, and me breaking someone’s heart.”

The next scene takes place at said opera, where Allegra and girlfriend Samantha (Julianne Nicholson) are on a double date with Allegra’s best friend and ex-lover Nell (Tina Benko). After the performance, Samantha announces she is going back to her boyfriend, in part because Allegra never says “I love you.” Allegra is still reeling from this when she meets Philip (Justin Kirk), a professor of philosophy appropriately attired in glasses and tweed jacket, at a party. Though undeniably attractive and clever, he doesn’t appear to be exorbitantly desirable. Nonetheless, the inebriated lesbian begs him to come home with her. He resists, mostly because of his longtime girlfriend, Grace (Gretchen Mol), but partly because Allegra vomits on his shoes.

However, they see each other again and, though she hasn’t been with a man in years, start an awkward but sexually charged relationship. The two also seem to share a variety of intellectual snobbery, discussing Kant and paradigm shifts over sushi. Meanwhile, in a twist too convenient to be plausible, Allegra and Grace randomly meet at Cinema Village. Grace is vulnerable over her breakup with Philip, and Allegra becomes involved romantically with her, too. The name of the game from here on out is to maintain these relationships without either finding out about the other, which we already know from the first scene is going to happen. Further complicating matters, Allegra seems to still carry a torch for Samantha.

The story is much easier to follow onscreen than on paper, and Maggenti utilizes some clever storytelling devices. Allegra has amusing imagined conversations with advice-soliciting strangers when in public places, including a subway train operator through the loudspeaker. Through the rambling thoughts of her protagonist, Maggenti says that sexuality is fluid rather than some hard and fast rule set in stone. Allegra states many times that marriage sickens her; it is only after some prodding by Philip that she confesses straight marriage is the problem.

“Marriage for gays is transgressive, radical. For straight people, it’s just bourgeois,” she tells him.

Both Mol and Benko turn in hilarious performances as the lovable ditz and bitchy ex-girlfriend-cum-best friend, respectively.

Grace is an investment banker, but longs to be a professional glass blower. She is bubbly and intelligent, all the while showing her vulnerability. After sleeping with Allegra for the first time, she bursts into tears. “Sex is so great, but it’s sad, too,” she explains to her befuddled lover. Nell is like the dry, witty superego to Allegra’s id, with a disapproving remark every step of the way.

The trouble is that it is sometimes difficult to identify with or even like Allegra. While she is intriguing and quirky, she is also kind of whiny. One gets the sense that she is supposed to represent sort of an attractive, female version of Woody Allen, with her cornucopia of neuroses and bumbling romantic style. She also has the irritating and bizarre habit of swaying back and forth when involved in intimate conversation, not unlike a wobbling drunk trying to stay afoot. A saving grace in her favor lies in her ignorance of the history between Grace and Philip.

In a mock interview between the fictional Allegra and real Maggenti, published in FLM, the director says that Allegra’s behavior is “my little way of commenting on an irritating cliché, that women can’t fuck without falling in love.” The idea of making a woman who fucks like a man, or is sexually liberated, or whatever else you choose to call it, isn’t exactly brand-new. “Sex and the City,” anyone?