Although hardly original this lesbian romantic comedy focuses on Rachel (Piper Perabo from “Lost”) a woman who should be celebrating her big day—she’s getting married to Heck (Matthew Goode, “Match Point”) who she was friends with before romance blossomed. After a chance encounter with Luce (Lena Headey “The Brothers Grimm”) a flower shop owner who designed the flower arrangement at Rachel’s wedding Rachel begins to wonder about her sexuality and whether marriage was the right thing for her. Rachel strikes up a friendship and their instant rapport encourages her to invite Luce out to dinner and try and fix her up with Cooper (Darren Boyd) their friend. Things spiral out of control from there when Rachel discovers that Luce is gay and finds that she can’t get the “flower girl” out of her head. Borrowing from films like “Love Actually”, “Notting Hill” and“Sweet Home Alabama”, doesn’t make “Imagine Me & You” the most original romantic comedy of the year but the fact that it focuses on a lesbian romance and questions about sexual orientation vs. a straight relationship injects the film with an unusual angle that makes it memorable.

With solid performances from the leads and a fun turn by Anthony Head (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as Rachel’s father, “Imagine Me & You” charms even when the comedy is forced or the story swims into predictable territory. Writer director Ol Parker does a credible job with the material he has created. It doesn’t break any new ground (like, say, “Go Fish”) but it wasn’t meant to either. This is more of a mainstream picture focusing on the consequences of a failed marriage/romance and the sexual confusion of Rachel. Perhaps she settles on Heck because she loves him but isn’t in love with him and hasn’t found anybody she’s truly attracted to of the same sex before. Regardless Parker does deal with the issues of Ra chel’s floundering marriage quite well and her initial infatuation with Luce. The best part of the film though is when Rachel realizes that she’s fallen in love and can’t bare to hurt Heck or Luce forcing her to make a choice between them. The film has a sweet quality as it slowly reveals the budding relationship between Rachel and Luce. Parker wisely keeps the relationship at bay much allowing for a big payoff at the end of the film.

Image & Sound:

“You” looks extremely good in this full screen transfer from Fox. Colors are robust and vivid complimenting the film’s cinematography. The preview copy I received was single sided and had only the full screen presentation of the movie on it. Evidently the commercial version of the film will be a flipper disc with both widescreen and the full screen version as well. I can’t comment on the quality of the widescreen version as isn’t here but I would imagine it would look at least as good as the full screen. The audio soundtrack naturally is dialogue driven (this is a romantic comedy vs. an action movie) and, as a result, the 5.1 format isn’t used to its best advantage but there are some nice ambient effects in the surround speakers.

Once again this is a single sided preview copy so it only has half of the special features so I can only comment on what I’ve seen. The commentary track that accompanies the film is quite good with director Parker discussing the changes the script went through from the initial draft to final version. He also comments on how he tweaked things by allowing a bit of improve and/or rewriting things on the fly if the written version of the script just didn’t play well. Parker gives a refreshingly honest and candid assessment of his film and is entertaining in the process. ***

We also get a “Q&A With The Director and Cast” which features Parker, actresses Perabo & Headey (interviewed together appropriately enough given that it’s about their onscreen relationship) and actor Goode. The interviews are surprisingly candid and quite good at discussing the inspiration of the film, changes in the script (Parker mentions that the first draft was quite a bit darker and that as he rewrote it the ending kept building into a bigger emotional payoff). Perabo and Headey discuss their characters and the changes their characters go through as they discover they are in love with each other. The two also discuss the challenge of playing that sense of discovery and make it appear fresh. The last extra is a preview for “Thank You For Smoking”. ***

There are also deleted scenes on the flipper version unfortunately I wasn’t able to view those because the DVD-R preview copy sent out by Fox didn’t have that material on it. Evidently there’s also a “Director’s Statement” that precedes the widescreen version of the film. I imagine it was similar to an introduction where the director probably discussing the inspiration for the film and his approach to the material but, again, couldn’t view it because it wasn’t there. ---

Final Words: