May 25, 2012
Author: Bradford Harrison
Actress Sara Rue should be familiar sight to most of us whether we know it or not. The New York City-based actress has dominated the CW with various shows over the last decade, as well as being one of the more compelling and interesting product (Weight Watchers) spokesperson in recent memory. That’s why it seems so perfect for Rue to play a character like Deb Dorfman in a film like Dorfman.
Dorfman (a romantic comedy directed by Brad Leong) follows Rue’s Dorfman as she endures living in the L.A. Valley area with her widowed father Burt, (a good turn by Elliot Gould). She works as an accountant for her brother, Daniel only because it’s the family business, having never spoken up at her disdain for the job.
Otherwise, she reads just read truly trashy romance novels and is love lorn for her brother’s best friend, a reporter named Jay. While Jay is away on assignment she is asked to watch his cat in his apartment in the city, and the journey of Deb Dorfman’s social evolution begins. It is here she makes friends with some of the people living in the building including Cookie, an up-and-coming artist.
Rue plays her obvious-to-all-but-her crush on Jay with manic earnestness, playing his interior decorator and battlefield therapist with equal vigor and energy, until she begins to come out of her shell and notice the world around her, including Cookie. The new found confidence Deb has with her family also shows. Her boss brother has used her for years as a buffer from his overbearing wife and the relationship with her father is strained as he is unable ( or unwilling) to move on after the loss of his wife the previous year as well as being he right direction.able to see Deb as a grown woman.
Dorfman is still an American romantic comedy with all the tropes and foibles of the genre intact, but it’s Rue who pulls Dorfman up through the cliches to create a fairly memorable character in a geographically distinct world. It’s hard to pull away from the pack in film sometimes, but even if you are only a step ahead, it’s a step in the right direction.
B+
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