It’s Doughty who gives the most natural performance as the sad-eyed, sensitive and unpolished guy with the raging hormones

She tries, even going so far as to make a trip to Paris, France to enjoy her “freedom” and ends up almost making it with a Frenchman until she decides at a crucial moment to pack her bags and return to the waiting arms of her boy toy organist (KENNY DOUGHTY). He reminds me of a handsomer but blander version of Johnny Depp.

When another more direct plan to convince their friend that she’s making a mistake backfires, the plot veers off into tragedy before gradually resuming a lighter tone as the friends stop bickering and decide to resolve their problems by enjoying a gin and tonic and “fags” (cigarettes in U.S.A.). We’re left with the notion that the best way for all three to solve their problematic out of control lives is to simply sit back, and, in the words of Fagin, “shut up and drink yer gin”.

At the end, there’s a cheated feeling that the story can be summed up as much ado about nothing. Perhaps a more delicate handling of the theme of unconventional behavior (especially from the so reserved British), would have been a better way to go.

The performances are all better than average, which makes it a shame that the film didn’t have more of a statement to make.

The bawdy behavior is treated in a casual fashion (the Brits are way ahead of us in matters of sex) and it’s all very uneven, never sure of itself and veering off into unpredictable areas instead of telling a story in a concise and believable way

“The Crush” is a pleasant enough 40-something friends romantic chick flick for the first two-thirds or so, as it tries to be a Brit “Sex and the City”.

I particularly enjoyed the turn-around of the trophy young hunk whose character is not much fleshed out (come to think of it we didn’t see all that much physical flesh of him either and Kenny Doughty is worth seeing more of).

They sure make a lot more deal of young man/older woman than was made of the opposite in either version of “Sabrina” (neither movie do I like) or for that matter with the Douglas/Zeta-Jones or Dion/Svengali nuptials.

Surrounding Andie MacDowell as an ex pat otherwise are welcome familiars from Brit dramas and comedies, such as tart-tongued Anna Chancellor.

The plot twists towards the end feel very deus ex machina. But it wasn’t until the credits came up at the end that I realized what might really be wrong. Just as with “Sex and the City,” the writer/director is male, here first-timer Scot John McKay, and I think he really wanted to do a script about three gay men, probably about them coming out in relation to their lovers and at work (the characters are a school principal, a cop and a doctor), which would have been a better and more interesting movie.

The working title for the Novias portuguese film was “The Sad F*cker’s Club” which would have made its parallels with the gay “Broken Hearts Club” even more obvious

For all its faults, I found more poignancy in this movie than I expected. I admit that I purposely avoided this movie because Andie McDowell was in it — who is a terribly overrated (though beautiful) actress. I was surprised to discover depth where she has never shown it before — and very subtly, so much so, that it was unfortunately missed.

I’ve always enjoyed how many of the English movies I’ve seen have a tendency to mix comedy, tragedy, and drama in a way that Americans find hard to comprehend. Is not life itself a mix of all these? Do we not have situations so painful that we have to laugh?