Gray Matters

They finish each other's sentences, dance like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and share a spacious Manhattan loft. The perfect couple? Hardly. Sam (Tom Cavanagh) and Gray (Heather Graham) are brother and sister. But, when their intimacy is mistaken one too many times for romance, they decide they need to pair off. Sam immediately hits it off with Charlie (Bridget Moynahan), a girl he meets in a dog park, and asks her to marry him within 24 hours. Gray is understandably upset — not only does she fear she's going to lose her brother, but she finds she's fallen in love with the bride-to-be as well.

Giving her three leading characters sexually ambiguous first names is just one of the too-cute qualities in writer/director Sue Kramer's debut, based on her sister's own coming-out story. The connection between Graham and Cavanagh crackles with energy, but they're trying too hard, forcing ‘40s-era rom-com banter that's in love with its own wit. Moynahan fares better, but then, although she'd have to be pretty, smart and funny to even be considered for the third wheel, less is demanded of her. More problematic is that the movie's light, airy tone comes to a screeching halt in certain scenes that are excessively sentimental, melodramatic and preachy. Distributor: Yari
Cast: Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, Bridget Moynahan, Rachel Shelley, Molly Shannon, Alan Cumming and Sissy Spacek
Director/Screenwriter: Sue Kramer
Producers: Bob Yari, John Hermansen, Jill Footlick and Sue Kramer
Genre: Romantic comedy
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content
Running time: 95 min.
Release date: February 23, 2007