Review: Ira & Abby

Is this all there is to mainstream indie filmmaking?

Ira & Abby
Photo: Magnolia Pictures

Amid its inquiry into the feasibility of monogamy, marriage, and true love, Robert Cary’s Ira & Abby raises a more pressing issue: Is this all there is to mainstream indie filmmaking? Little more than an elongated sitcom masquerading as a Woody Allen film, this romcom is about as groundbreaking and fascinating as a spam sandwich.

Ira & Abby, written by Jennifer Westfeldt, is cheery, colorfully lensed homily about matrimony as a cultural construct that impedes true happiness, as well as the necessity of honesty and open communication in a healthy relationship. It follows the anxious Ira (Chris Messina), a psychology PhD candidate who can’t cope with—much less finish—anything that he undertakes, as he attempts to change his life by getting a gym membership and winds up impulsively marrying the workout establishment’s people-person sales rep, Abby (Westfeldt).

Ira obsesses over everything while Abby blithely follows her heart, making them an odd couple whose whirlwind romance can only lead to trouble, which arrives in a variety of faux-kooky ways involving former lovers and less-than-sterling parental role models. Ira’s overbearing analyst mother, Arlene (Judith Light), falls for Abby’s laidback bohemian father, Michael (Fred Willard), one of many developments intended to provide zany laughs as well as life lessons about the fallacy of marriage offering guarantees of contentment or faithfulness.

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Despite portraying a blissfully optimistic, intuition-guided ditz, Westfeldt is nonetheless sharp, and manages to out-charm Messina, whose neurotic Jewish shtick—indecisive stammers, exaggerated eye rolls, and flummoxed hand gestures—feels like a photocopy of an imitation. Still, that most everything about Ira & Abby lands with a mild thud is due mainly to a script short on laughs and emotion but intensely long on cute montages, signpost speeches, and cameos from former and current NBC-employed funnymen (Jason Alexander and Chris Parnell as therapists, Darrell Hammond as a plastic surgeon) who are expected to increase the material’s comedy quotient simply by lending their presence to the proceedings, but don’t.

Score: 
 Cast: Jennifer Westfeldt, Chris Messina, Judith Light, Jason Alexander, Frances Conroy, Darrell Hammond, Robert Klein, Chris Parnell, Fred Willard  Director: Robert Cary  Screenwriter: Jennifer Westfeldt  Distributor: Magnolia Pictures  Running Time: 105 min  Rating: NR  Year: 2006  Buy: Video

Nick Schager

Nick Schager is the entertainment critic for The Daily Beast. His work has also appeared in Variety, Esquire, The Village Voice, and other publications.

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