PRESS QUOTES

The love scenes are steamy and realistic, and Jamie's more self-defeating behavior rings true. This smart, low-budget indie makes for a much better date than anything you might do with Bridget Jones.
- Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News

Weinstock does an impressive job of capturing the brave messiness of single life...Her sex scenes have the rare feel of authenticity.
- Anita Gates, New York Times

Mention should also be made of the charms of "Easy," starring the striking Marguerite Moreau. Jane Weinstockís movie could only have been made in Los Angeles: her ear is well attuned to that cityís very specific hip, multi-ethnic lifestyle.
- David Ansen, Newsweek

Indie romance is appealing, well-acted alternative to bloated Hollywood love stories... Jamie Harris is nothing like [Bridget Jones]. And the movie that's lucky enough to have her as its heroine is just as fresh and winning.
- Stephen Whitty, Newark Star Ledger

A film that genuinely has something to say about the way we live now.
- Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post Dispatch

Writer-director Jane Weinstock takes you down a well-trod path in romantic comedy, but her characters are smart and funny, the twists are unexpected and, for once, a romantic triangle is presented realistically with the choice a woman must face being anything but easy. There is smoothness to the entire production that is astonishing.
- Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

"Easy" is a fresh and charming romantic comedy about the perils of dating in our disconnected urban playgrounds. Marguerite Moreau is enormously engaging and convincingly befuddled as a single woman looking for love in all the wrong places.
- Stephen Farber, Movielineís Hollywood Life

A fine performance from Marguerite Moreau and sharp directing by Jane Weinstock make this one of the USA Film Festivalís best feature films.
- Charles Ealy, Dallas Morning News

Micro-budget winner from writer-director Jane Weinstock... Weinstock's trump is Marguerite Moreau, a natural-born charmer with a million-dollar smile who keeps you rooting for Jamie without ever sacrificing her character's edge.
- Ken Fox, TV Guide

In order for "Easy" to work, everyone must love the character of Jamie, and they do. Keep in mind, this film works not only due to the stellar cast but because of its realism...This film is, well, easy to love. Its humanity, truthfulness and great characters elevate it above the conventions of the typical "romantic comedy." But it is funny, and romantic. This film should also serve to catapult the amazing Marguerite Moreau to stardom.
- Don Lewis, Film Threat

An exquisite romantic comedy/drama, by a talented first-timer Jane Weinstock, who has written and directed a smart, sexy and irresistible film...."Easy" is a film about love, sex, family and identity, struggling to come to terms with all. Bitingly funny, the film's humour is derived from reality and a true sense of character. Despite it being directed and produced by women, "Easy" is no contrived chick flick, but an honest, genuinely sexy comment on relationships distinguished by a star-turning performance by the irresistible Moreau.
- Paul Fischer, Moviehole/Dark Horizons

Emotionally sophisticated, with well-rounded characters, director Jane Weinstockís "Easy" is a rewarding comedy-drama. At the center of the piece is the radiant Moreau, whose realistic, nuanced performance as Jamie carries the day. Actually all of the main characters seem real and vibrant, with lots of emotional baggage and messy lives, pretty much like people in the real world.
- John Oak Dalton, Microcinema Scene



'Easy'
This film makes it looks so simple.
By Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer

"Easy" resists easy classifications. It is a lively, idiosyncratic romantic comedy, funny and sexy but with a strong serious streak. It's both a promising debut for writer-director Jane Weinstock and a breakthrough role for star Marguerite Moreau.

Set in a contemporary L.A. that is recognizable both psychologically and physically (credit cinematographer Paul Ryan and production designer Aradhana Seth), "Easy" talks the local talk as well. Where else would a woman casually say, "I'm dying to have a baby, but my girlfriend wants to wait."

"Easy" milieu is as old as Jane Austen and as contemporary as "Sex and the City": a young woman's attempt to find her romantic footing. It's about the morass of dating, how changeable and will-o'-the-wisp our feelings can be, how we complicate our lives without trying.

Though Weinstock's on-target writing means a lot of "Easy" is amusing, a lot is intentionally not. "Easy" touches on suicide, infidelity and other serious matters as it reminds us that though we may be smiling, the lives we are laughing at play differently to the people who are living them.

Definitely not laughing at this point in her life is protagonist Jamie Harris (Moreau), a young woman who names products for a living and whose personal life is laid bare via a series of outrageous phone messages left by guys breaking up with her in the most obtuse ways possible.

Prone to sleeping with men before she really knows them, Jamie considers herself "a pathetic jerk magnet" who is "having a really destructive relationship with myself." The drama in "Easy" is directed at proving to Jamie and the world what the audience immediately knows: She deserves a whole lot better than she's been getting.

In the way of movies since time immemorial, after all this rejection, Jamie comes across not one but two men who have the potential to be the real thing. First is the killingly handsome John Kalicharan ("The English Patient's" Naveen Andrews), a smoldering, Byronic poet whose romantic-poetry seminar Jamie once took. And then there is Mick McCabe (Brian F. O'Byrne), a self-described "silly Irish bloke" who has a wacky talk show on Comedy Central.

As Jamie tries to decide if either of these guys is for her, she does something that Jane Austen heroines never did: She has lots of frankly presented sex. Director Weinstock has said she wanted the sequences "to be more like real sex, and not some kind of romanticized moment where you see an arm, a leg, a thigh and then it's over." She succeeded.

Perhaps because it is a first-time venture, there are moments when "Easy" is not all it could be, when there is too much coincidence in the characters' lives and not enough chemistry between the actors. But whenever things start to flag, the film can count on star Moreau to come to its rescue.

Best known for costarring opposite John Cusack in "Runaway Jury" and for a current role in ABC's "Life as We Know It," Moreau is this film's irreplaceable epicenter. With her radiant smile and unquenchable spirit, she carries this film on her shoulders, and makes it all look, well, easy.