'TOUCHY FEELY': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another comedy-drama film about relationships from writer/director Lynn Shelton. Shelton also wrote and directed the 2009' film 'HUMPDAY' and 2011's 'YOUR SISTER'S SISTER' (which was a better movie). One of the stars of 'YOUR SISTER'S SISTER', Rosemarie DeWitt, also stars in this film along with Ellen Page, Josh Pais, Scoot McNairy, Allison Janney, Tomo Nakayama and Ron Livingston. The movie is about a dentist and his daughter struggling to revive their dental business and the dentist's sister, who's a massage therapist, that suddenly loses her ability to touch another human being (out of fear). It's quirky and oddly funny at times but never very touching or as emotionally moving as it would like to be.

DeWitt plays Abby, a massage therapist who's boyfriend Jesse (McNairy) just asked her to move in with him. This scares her, as her last relationship was a hard breakup, and she starts having panic attacks that prevent her from doing her job. Her brother Paul (Pais) is a very conservative and anal dentist who lives in their parents' old house with his daughter Jenny (Page). Jenny is Paul's assistant at his dental practice, where business has been extremely slow. One day Jenny invites her friend Henry (Tomo Nakayama) in for a free cleaning and when her father heals his long time tooth pains their reputation picks up and so does their business.

The movie is interesting and entertaining enough while you're watching it but once it's over it doesn't really leave you with much to think about. That's good enough for some movies but I think a film like this really wants to accomplish a lot more. The cast is all great (I think DeWitt is gorgeous and I've been a fan of Page ever since 'JUNO') and the characters are likable but I don't think the resolutions to their problems are very satisfactory. It's oddly funny but never hilarious and is frequently on the verge of being emotionally moving but never quite gets there. It all seems just a little too uneventful in the end. Not a bad film but not an especially good one either.

Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDElhat3XPM

Being a fan of indies and a fan of DeWitt & Page, I was eager to check this one out. Even the public story-line ("massage therapist's sudden aversion to bodily contact") sounded promising. Well, I was mildly disappointed, but there are definitely a lot of goodies here: good acting, interesting characters & dynamics in certain scenes...

My only problem is, that they don't add up to a whole - they remain valuable flickers of light without creating a rounded off piece of art. Kind of work-in-progress feeling here...

**** SPOILER **** With Abby (DeWitt) & her brother Paul (Pais),things turn for the better after they take Ecstasy. Abby (DeWitt) faces her first crush, just like Jenny (Page) faces her crush, too, who is actually Abby's boyfriend, Jesse (McNairy). After facing their respective crushes, both opt to 'play safe' - Abby returning to her boyfriend, Jenny giving the green light to a guy who cares for her for a long time. OOOKAY, SO THE MESSAGE HERE IS...??? **** END OF SPOILER ****

I wanted to love this movie, it feels exactly like the type of movie in which that would happen. It started off so strongly and I was convinced that it would be one of my favorite films of the year. And then it just kind of died. The actors were all great and it is hard for me not to love anything Allison Janney is involved with. I just can't quite put my finger on what happened here.

Rosemarie DeWitt is a masseuse who is suddenly turned off by skin and physical contact and this creates a barrier with her job as well as her boyfriend. Josh Pais is her brother, a dentist who borders on being seemingly autistic and really has no joy or connection with anyone in the world, including his daughter (Ellen Page) who feels trapped working with her father at his office. Pais goes to see Allison Janney (a masseuse working with DeWitt) and is inspired to have connections of his own, but we never really see it come to fruition in any meaningful way that makes any sense. Which is how I felt about most of the situations in the film.

The parts with the father coming to Allison Janney for the first time and the great interaction and natural acting of the family all getting together for that first dinner were perfect. But then everything just kind of flattens out and people get worse and try various things to get better and some of it works and some is sort of unresolved and we never quite go beyond that.

I was quite surprised to find that this film was under 90 minutes because when it was nearly over, I found myself wondering just when it was going to end because it felt so long. There are voice-over and music montages where we see what the various characters are going through that just feel like they are twice as long as they should be. And those are the types of scenes I typically love so I really wish they had landed in this film. I think if I had cared more about the characters and they weren't just odd caricatures as the film went on, it would have maybe had more impact. The acting was all really great though and I loved the cast. They did well with what felt like half-baked characters and certainly elevated the film in that regard.

Things resolve themselves for the characters without any real feeling of why but I didn't depart with any real personal resolution from the audience standpoint.