Single 28 year old Jessica, Jennifer Westfeldt gets an attack of the panics when her brother announces his marriage and a colleague at the New York magazine where she works as a copy editor falls pregnant. After a series of unsuccessful dates Jessica responds to a personal ad in the women-seeking-women column that`s been placed by art gallery director Helen, Heather Jurgensen. Helen has three men on the run but wants to explore a relationship with a woman. Tentatively and funnily a romance develops between the two with Helen the more confident and demanding and Jessica the more neurotic.
Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld from a screenplay developed by the two actors, from their off-off Broadway production, Kissing Jessica Stein has a swag of witticisms and a delicious sense of romance in which the characters are flawed, they`re real. It`s smart and funny with very appealing performances by both the leads and with wonderful contributions from Tovah Feldshuh as Jessica`s mother and Jackie Hoffman as her friend Joan. At first it may seem too insistently New York Jewish but when it escapes clich? it`s really terrific. It`s treading in Woody Allen territory but now I think David may ask me to wash my mouth out.....
