While watching Autumn in New York I was struck by its parallel to the Clinton/Lewinsky business. There are superficial similarities, especially in the lead players--a powerful 50-year-old man with gray hair and a 20-year-old brunette with stars in her eyes. But there are also deeper critical similarities. The film has attracted media and public attention due to the high profile of its lead players. However, the first glare of interest, which was largely spawned through some giddy love of scandal, fairly quickly gives way to revulsion, and then ultimately settles into boring.

Autumn in New York is a love story. It concerns a rich and glamorous restaurateur named Will Keane (Richard Gere) who treats women with no more respect that his next gourmet meal. He has not yet discovered that in relationships you can have your cake and eat it too.

All that changes when he falls for a woman named Charlotte Fielding (Winona Ryder), who has all the trappings of a good romantic heroine. She's young (22 in fact, even though Winona is actually 29), she's pretty in a waifish kind of way, and she's dying. And true of all highly sentimental claptrap, this heroine wanders around the movie absorbed in artistic pursuits (making hats and playing with beads) while spouting poetry, badly.

There are two major problems with this film. First, the plot is so fraught with problems that you can never let go of them. Will tricks Charlotte into seeing him by asking her to design a hat for his date to a huge gala dinner. When she shows up with the hat, Will explains that his date is ill, and asks Charlotte to go in her stead. Amazingly enough, he has purchased her a complete outfit for the occasion. Now, please, are we to believe that she didn't have time to go back home to change? And a guy who whips out to buy a dress, shoes, and undergarments for a girl he spoke to once in a restaurant, is likely to be called many things, and none of them are romantic.

Still Charlotte falls for it, and plays little 22-year-old games with him on the way to the occasion. It would all be rather cute if it were not so pathetic. And the pathos has only just begun. When Will explains that their relationship can't work, she agrees, glibly explaining in her "oh-so-sweet" way that she is, in fact, dying. From there, the movie becomes totally pathetic. Now, pathetic is an ambiguous word, meaning either capable of arousing sympathetic compassion or scornful pity. In my opinion, it's all scorn.

The second major problem with Autumn in New York is the pairing of Gere and Ryder. There is no chemistry here, none, nada, zip. And when Gere leans in at one point for a big juicy kiss, it's stomach-turningly repulsive.

In an attempt to add some life to this drivel, there is a sub-plot, which begins as a mystery but finally seems to have been included merely for the sentimental ending. In fact, much of the movie seems to have been planned from a design point of view, allowing for good cinematography, if nothing else.

There are also the obligatory character actors thrown in for good measure. Like every cad in existence, Will has his Jiminy Cricket sidekick to remind him that he is a jerk. In this case it's Anthony LaPaglia as John, who doubles as bartender in Will's restaurant. Then there's Elaine Stritch, who, as Charlotte's grandmother, Dolly, is the only character to have some genuine emotion. Certainly she alone attracts empathy.

Since emotional involvement with this film is nigh impossible, there is at least time to ponder the score by Gabriel Yared, whose penchant for wailing violin only adds to the melancholy lethargy of this film.

Sadly, there is little to recommend Autumn in New York. The city looks good, but that small consolation won't help you plow your way through this heavy-handed and frankly dull film.


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