Little more than an accompaniment to an eclectic soundtrack of pop songs (Hall and Oates, Modern English, America, 10cc, Soft Cell, the Human League, the Turtles, and of course the title tune by the Association), though the songs are better integrated than in most such cases. Which is to say they have a better excuse. The looking-for-love heroine is a constant caller to the request line at KXCH, "the Best Love Songs of All-Time," a practice she pursues all the harder when placed under house arrest, on the "bracelet program," with exactly fifty-seven feet of freedom in a large loft in a bad part of town: not much leeway to prove her innocence and catch the real culprit. The confinement to a single room for much of the movie, apart from the penny-saving benefits, impels director Finn Taylor (Dream with the Fishes) to modest heights of ingenuity: fast-motion and time-lapse effects, jump cuts, a 360-degree tracking shot and, most impressively, a 360-degree pan in which the heroine appears to be several places at once. Robin Tunney projects some of the raspy sex appeal of Demi Moore before Demi Moore moved to another planet. And Tim Blake Nelson, as the sympathetic deputy from Squaresville (the singer whose name goes into his ear as Noe Venable keeps coming out of his mouth as Noe Venerable), assures us, after O Brother, Where Art Thou?, that his acting range extends well above moron. Nora Dunn, Liz Phair, Jason Priestley. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.