Susan Granger’s review of “THREE TO TANGO” (Warner Bros.)
The producers of this mildly amusing, off-beat romantic comedy obviously thought that if they paired popular Matthew Perry from TV’s “Friends” with Neve Campbell from TV’s “Party of Five” and “Scream,” adding Dylan McDermott and Oliver Platt for substance, they’d have a hit – wrong! Matthew Perry plays an ambitious, idealistic, if clumsy young architect who has just been chosen by businessman Dylan McDermott to compete for the design of a multi-million dollar Chicago cultural center. The slimy tycoon also tells Perry he’ll get preferential consideration if he’ll spy on his mistress, Neve Campbell, assuming that Perry is a homosexual, like his openly gay partner, played by Oliver Platt. Predictably, Perry falls for Campbell, who also thinks he’s gay, particularly when he’s honored as Gay Professional of the Year. What will he do? Will he continue to lie to hold on to the job opportunity of a lifetime and a warm but frustrating friendship with the girl he loves or come out of the closet and admit he’s secretly straight? You guess. I’ll give you a hint, though. Screenwriter Rodney Vaccaro’s own bizarre experience inspired the story. While he was working as creative director of a large advertising agency, he fell in love with his boss’s mistress. A series of what he describes as “sexual errors” led to Vaccaro eventually marrying her and co-writing this script with Aline Brosh McKenna. But, despite superficial similarities, this is no “The Apartment” or even “In and Out,” perhaps because of Damon Santostefano’s light-hearted direction which makes it feel like a TV sit-com. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Three to Tango” is a frenetic, formulaic, flimsy 4, satirizing sexual stereotypes with the catchline: “You’ve made a big gay bed, and now you must slumber gayly in it!”
