Looking for Sunday

Seeing as this film was set in my hometown, and some of it was filmed very close to where I live, I really wanted to like it. Really.

And Michael Weston is a terrific young actor, as evidenced by his chilling portrayal of a sociopath on "Six Feet Under." He's talented enough to carry a film, I think, but this one's flimsy plot and character development couldn't have been saved by an Olivier. At least Alan Ball hands his actors truly meaty roles, complex characters an audience can care about.

Spence Decker's narcissistic band-frontman swaggers through the film looking like Edward Burns redux, but this is no "Brothers McMullen." Somehow that story managed to have charm. Not so here.

What can I say about this movie? There's no "there" there. It's hard to care about the conflicts and life dilemmas of these listless twentysomethings when we're given so little to work with. Not a single connection between characters comes across as anything but superficial or utilitarian; the small, occasional hiccups of emotion are inconsequential, and the momentary injection of "philosophy" (the subject of Weston's character's doctoral thesis) goes no deeper than high school Philosophy 101. Then there's the tedious CW-network-drama tendency they all have to lecture one another about life, when none of them, ostensibly, has yet seen his (or her) thirtieth birthday.

Other things don't make sense to me: why does Peter (Weston) love Elizabeth? Yes, she's pretty, and vivacious, and she has large breasts, but she's also dishonest, somewhat manipulative, and emotionally repressed. Maybe when you're a guy in your twenties, all that matters is that a girl be pretty and vivacious and have large breasts. I don't know. But why doesn't a doctoral student in philosophy have at least a few more intelligent friends?

I gave it three stars for the able acting of Weston and the well-shot footage of some of Denver's local color.