Predictable romance story sugar-coated with gloss and glitz.

Charlotte (Winona Ryder) is the perfect new lover for Will (Richard Gere). She's young, beautiful, and "on her way out" as Anthony LaPaglia quips in this downright terrible film by director Joan Chen. Autumn In New York is everything that the trailers lead you to believe that it will be: a sappy, overblown melodrama with a pathetic plot and pathetic characters to match. Even the panoply of fatal flaws (no pun intended) is predictable.

Warning: Spoiler Ahead...

The producers and distributors of Autumn In New York did not offer the usual reporters screening of the movie before its premiere. Most reporters suspect that this was due to fear of scathing press and reviews, the producers claim that they wanted the movie's "twist" or so-called "surprise element" to remain under wraps. I have no idea why this is so, since one need only see the theatrical trailer to understand the entire film. Womanizer Will meets quirky and innocent beauty Charlotte, and after that fated glance across a crowded over-priced restaurant, fall hopelessly into a swooning May-December romance. But alas, their love is doomed by an ill-defined cancerous heart condition that has befallen Charlotte. The rest of the movie is occupied with the rather pedestrian progression of the ill-fated affair and a misplaced subplot involving Will?s reunification with an illegitimate daughter.

The frustrations with this movie begin at its source, the writing and premise. The script fails to find a proper tone from the outset. The moments clearly intended for humor are clunky and almost painful. The dialogue intended for poignancy, on the other hand, provides plenty of humor value, as it is so corny that the viewer has no choice but to suppress laughter. The relationship written for Gere and Ryder is completely unbelievable. The only indication we have that they are experiencing a first and true love is that Ryder's graveyard-bound status demands that assumption. Otherwise, the story gives little if any attention to why these two people are attracted to each other in a way that makes this relationship different. A fateful gaze can only explain so much about a romance.

In fairness, the lackluster relationship can't be blamed entirely on the writing. I've seen more chemistry between two fruit flies then I saw between Ryder and Gere. They often look blatantly embarrassed at the lines they must utter, and one must wonder why these two successful actors did not turn down the project, it's not as if they need the work.

As if the story and the acting were not enough to make me wretch, the score and the cinematography (or, as I prefer in this case: faux cinematography) definitely pushed me over the edge. Chen has painted this film in those lush autumn colors usually reserved for movies about ackward teenaged boys coming of age at bucolic New England prep schools. I suspect that she means to highlight how a relationship is most beauteous as it is fading and dying. (Think: brilliant autumn trees turning to cold, bare skeletons). Unfortunately, golden autumn colors just look silly and saccharine as the backdrop to such a hackneyed love story. There are also several pointless and gratuitous shots of birds flapping their wings and flying away in increasingly irritating sequences. The grandiloquent score matches the lofty scenery all to well.

I really wish I could sue the producers to get back the two hours they have sucked from my life. If you don't already have Attention Deficit Disorder, I guarantee that Autumn In New York will give it to you. This film is so long and poorly done that it could turn even the most patient and calm person into a squirming and watch-glancing wreck. I suppose that the filmmakers are perversely talented: they've managed to take the story of a terminal illness and turn it into the most interminable motion picture of the year.

Robin Effron a is a writer living in Manhattan, where she occassionally shows up at Columbia University as a student of philosophy and political science.