Just perfect...

Excellent adaptation.

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This film has to be the result of a drunken wager. One of Edward Burns' running buddies must have bet him a case of scotch or something that he couldn't make a movie where the main character was a woman. So, Burns set out to write and direct Purple Violets, where the main character is a woman…and lost the bet. That's because all this thing is good for is demonstrating in painful detail that Edward Burns cannot make a movie where the main character is a woman. You won't find too many better examples than this of a talented storyteller struggling against the very story he's trying to tell.Patti Petalson (Selma Blair) used to be a writer. She even got a thinly veiled account of her college years published, but that was many years ago. Now she works as a realtor for a condescending ass of a boss, is married to a pudgy dick with an English accent and hasn't written a word in forever. Then one night, while having dinner with her caustic girlfriend Kate (Debra Messing), Patti has a chance encounter with Brian Callahan (Patrick Wilson). He's the old boyfriend she dumped back in college who went on to become a famous crime novelist and just published his first attempt at serious literature to horrible reviews. Brian still hangs out with Michael Murphy (Edward Burns), the wiseass who dated Kate in college until he broke her heart. Brian also has an intolerable bitch of a girlfriend.Do I actually need to explain to you where the plot goes from here? Seriously? Can I not just tell you that this is Burns' feeble attempt at an utterly unsurprising romantic comedy and leave it at that?What I do want to make clear is that this is NOT an ensemble movie. Purple Violets is about Patti Petalson. She's the main character and there's no doubt about that. However, within the first 15 minutes of the film it is stunningly obvious that Burns is not only much more interested in the secondary characters of Brian and Murphy, he doesn't know what to really do with Patti and doesn't know that he doesn't know what to do with Patti. There are far more scenes between Brian and Murphy than there are between Patti and Kate, with Kate reduced to even more of two-dimensional bitch than Brian's intolerable bitch of a girlfriend. Heck, I'd bet there are more scenes between Brian and Murphy than between Brian and Patti and more scenes of Patti and Murphy than Patti and Kate. And whenever Burns writes a scene of Patti by herself, she's never doing anything. She's standing and moping or she's walking and moping or she's looking out the window and moping. And for those few scenes of Patti and Kate together, can you guess what they do? That's right, they talk almost exclusively about Brian and Murphy, with Patti even taking Murphy's side and defending a guy she hasn't seen in over a decade against the woman who's supposed to be her best friend.Purple Violets is like something that would be dissected in a woman's studies program at an all-girls university as an example of false consciousness. Burns thinks he's making a movie about a woman and her struggles in life, but he's not. He's really making a movie about a couple of guys. That's where all of his attention is. That's where all of his effort is. That's undeniably the movie he wants to make. He just doesn't realize it. In addition to being awesomely misdirected, this film isn't very well done in general. The best stuff is (surprise!) the relationship between Brian and Murphy. But Patti and the other female characters are so slackly written that it seeps into everything else. I mean, Burns actually has someone say out loud "My heart is breaking". It's all either shallow or truncated or both.Purple Violets is terrible. I hope Burns didn't skimp when he bought that other guy the case of scotch or whatever he owed him.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did, but it didn't manage to be likable in a sustained way. There were some funny and interesting moments, but overall it was not a great film. Every character was so exaggerated - Elizabeth Resaser and Donal Logue were so unpleasant, how could their uber-sweet partners have ever found them appealing? Especially we're supposed to believe that Selma Blair has been married to this schmuck for 7 years? How did she last 7 minutes? And how could Patrick Wilson have spent 6 months with the shrill and obnoxious Bernadette? And Ed Burns character was also ridiculous - how could this man, who refers to himself in the third person as "The Murph," possibly be a successful literary lawyer? I'm not a fan of Selma Blair - I've always thought she was quite wooden and charmless, but she actually did a passable job in this role. But the whole movie was so stuffed with clichés and caricatures, it's just not worth sitting through for the few winning moments. Disappointing, because it had a promising premise. I expect more from Ed Burns.

Purple Violets opened to rave reviews from the home team at the Tribeca Film Festival at it's World Premiere on April 30. Ed Burns is in rare form as the Murph, a wise-cracking New York recovering alcoholic, trying to make amends. He tries to win back his ex, played by Debra Messing, who takes holding a grudge to new levels. Selma Blair is terrific as Patti, a writer suffering from writer's block. Patrick Wilson is very engaging as Brian, Patti's old boyfriend who tries to win her back. Donal Logue, who usually plays the nice guy, really shows his stuff as Chazz, Patti's cad of a husband. Always memorable, Dennis Farina, plays Patti's boss from hell.I have always been a Burns fan, but found this film even wittier, faster, and funnier than expected. I especially liked the women talking about the men and the men talking about the women.

I saw the movie tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was the world premier of the movie and the entire cast and crew was present. Ed Burns held a question/answer session after the film. If you like his other work you should enjoy this film which takes place in NYC and the Hamptons. The story follows the lives of old college friends who meet up when they are in their early 30s.The 4 main characters used to be lovers, but those relationships ended back when college did. I would place it under the romantic comedy category. A friend who attended the premier with me commented that she felt the movie was made in a very 'woody Allen'style. Enjoyable.