Autumn In New York Review

Will Keane (Richard Gere) runs a fashionable New York restaurant and he`s so famous he`s on the cover of New York magazine. He`s 48 and an incorrigible womaniser, first seen telling his current girlfriend their relationship is over, using a speech he`s obviously used many times before. Then he meets Charlotte, Winona Ryder, who`s 22, young enough to be his daughter - in fact, he once dated her mother. Charlotte is sweet and naive and romantic - and she`s also very sick, suffering from one of those heart diseases beloved of bad screenwriters.... Talk about mawkish - Autumn In New York makes Love Story look like Citizen Kane. And, despite the attractive leads and the attractive settings, it`s a romance which fails to ignite, fails to touch, fails to convince on any level. The wafer-thin plot is padded out with minor characters, mostly more interesting than the principals: Elaine Stritch as Charlotte`s caustic grandmother, Vera Farmiga as Will`s long-lost daughter, Anthony LaPaglia as his best friend. But the focus is on the autumnal romance and, as Christmas approaches, the sentimentality is laid on with a trowel. I`d expected a lot more from actor-turned director Joan Chen, whose first feature as director, The Sent-Down Girl, was a tough as this one is soggy.