The lead performances are not to blame.Sean Penn plays Eddie, lost boy and loose cannon whose only footup on even the lowest rung of socialization and functionaladulthood is his love for a similarly simple and volatilewaif-of-the-streets, Maureen, played by Sean's wife, Robin WrightPenn. Halfway through the 95-minute movie, Eddie makes the step(it's even shorter than we'd been led to think, and handled -- asare many of the film's plot twists -- with a thumping lack ofcredibility) to a complete psychotic breakdown, and isinstitutionalized for 10 years. Here Penn goes to the end of theroad he entered so memorably with his fine portrayal of thecondemned killer in Dead Man Walking; his Eddie is anapotheosis of the maladjusted, uneducated misfit whosewoundedness explodes in rage and violence. It's a showyperformance and all the more impressive for only occasionallygiving in to self-conscious grandstanding. Robin Penn, also anactor of some power -- whose strong-boned blondness distinctlyrecalls the younger Rowlands and whose career to date seemssimilarly, frustratingly meager -- does what she can to build asympathetic, or at least believable, character of theunderscripted Maureen. But when the movie jumps ahead a decadeand Eddie is released, and we discover Maureen, now cleaned-up,better adjusted, and living in suburbia, married to a buildingcontractor named Joey (John Travolta), and the mother of threeyoung daughters, the actor is left stranded with a trumped-upfilm finish that may have seemed very high in concept butprovides a very low character-development arc or anythingapproaching dramatic credibility.

Will Eddie and Maureen destroy whatseems to be a normal, if somewhat tenuous, family by running offtogether? Since all that the film has shown us is the pair'sdangerous irresponsibility and tawdry self-indulgence, we canguess. Will the viewer care? Probably not much, since we prettymuch feel by this point that no one should have to put up withthese two except each other. Cassavetes' careless use of Eddie'sclinical emotional illness as an almost glancing plot device isindicative of She's So Lovely's misbegotten ambition toframe a noirish tale of unappealing outcasts with hip-coolcomedy. But it is the incidental treatment of the children thatis the true nadir of the project. That the children are indeedincidental to Maureen and Eddie, though deplorable, is notunexpected since they are so apparently self-absorbed. But it isthe film itself that seems to forget the three young girls arethere. There's a bit of unsatisfying and dramatically strainedattention given to their plight, but, by and large, the impact ofthe story's final scenes seems to have been completely lost onyoung Cassavetes. As the children look on uncomprehendingly --and most of the audience looks on with more than a little disgustat these painful, almost macabre scenes -- She's So Lovelycomes to a characteristically dissonant ending in which whimsicalsoundtrack music and wry character reactions try to signal thatthese proceedings are to be taken all in good fun. But just asthe lack of fleshed-out emotional conflict robs the film of itsaspirations toward kitchen-sink pathos, so the lack ofdirectorial viewpoint and tone make a sour, disingenuous mess ofits would-be dark comedy.

It may have taken two awards at theCannes Film Festival (where pretension reigns even more securelythan it does at the Oscars), but She's So Lovely isart-house grittiness sans true grit.