At the Movies: 'Two Ninas'

Feast or famine. Delight or despair. Two sassy girlfriends â€” or none. <br><br>Now which would you choose? <br><br>That's the dating dilemma of the modern man in ``Two Ninas,'' a sweet comedy

Thursday, January 25th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Feast or famine. Delight or despair. Two sassy girlfriends â€” or none.

Now which would you choose?

That's the dating dilemma of the modern man in ``Two Ninas,'' a sweet comedy of romantic errors â€” or should we say Eros â€” by first-time writer-director Neil Turitz.

Just in time for that awkward month â€” the one that includes Valentine's Day â€” here's a film that twentysomethings can safely attend with a blind date and ``l-o-l'' before they ``g-t-g.'' (For the Internet-challenged, that's ``laugh out loud'' before they ``got to go.'') Or maybe, just maybe, they could smile wistfully at the truisms of dating that ``Two Ninas'' hits with a Cupid's bull's-eye â€” and take a closer glance at the possible future mate sitting right beside them.

Marty Sachs (Ron Livingston) has had it with the life of a would-be writer in New York City and is thinking of heading back to Maine to live with Mom and Dad. Rejected weekly by publishers, literary agents and women, he's an affable fish out of water in the rough-and-tumble social milieu of Manhattan.

To make things worse, he gets to see his chain-smoking, hard-drinking buddy Dave (Bray Poor) score weekly despite being a classic cad.

Prodded forth by Dave, Marty attends yet another party in hopes of finding a soul mate. True to form, it's as bad as he expected. But he's not the only one who hates the what's-your-name-where-do-you-work scene. Wary Nina Cohen (Cara Buono) is just as unhappy, and together they flee the meat market with the glee of kids leaving school early.

When Marty unknowingly passes Nina's ``great guy'' test â€” a series of questions, many involving favorite baseball players, which apparently all previous suitors had failed â€” it seems that lightning has struck in the desert of love. Not a full storm, mind you, but enough kisses to ignite some heat.

A few days later, a decidedly buoyant Marty is inline-skating down Fifth Avenue when a cab door flies open and knocks him silly. Meet Nina Harris (Amanda Peet), a blonde with a trunkload of Daddy's money who takes an immediate shine to Marty.

The other Nina is out of town, Marty is a little woozy, sooooooooo ... you know what happens. No man, especially the naive Marty, is a match for the full force of Nina No. 2.

So as the wisecracking narrator, Dave, watches in amazement, Marty â€” the good guy, the bad liar, the man who just wants to meet one woman â€” begins to date two very different, very sexy women at the same time. And they like him. And he likes them both. And what's he supposed to do now?

Turitz admits to doing something like ``a thousand rewrites'' of the screenplay and says he had never even been on a film set before. Despite his inexperience, he has fashioned a witty comic fable and elicited four fine performances from his cast.

Livingston has a boy-next-door appeal, while Peet is a stop-traffic looker with surprising depth in her luminous, deep-set eyes. With ticks, twitches and the ever-present cigarette, Poor shines as an edgy schemer who thinks he's got all the angles covered â€” only to find that he's more like a ricocheting ball on the pool table of love.

And then there is Buono, dear Buono, who gently evolves from being a bitter man-hater into a funny, self-confident woman who's ready to step up to the plate and hit one out of the park.

Give her a pitch, Marty. Me and the blind date will cheer you on.

Released by Castle Hill Productions, ``Two Ninas'' runs 88 minutes and is rated R for language and adult situations.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G â€” General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG â€” Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 â€” Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R â€” Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 â€” No one under 17 admitted.