Head Over Heels (2001)

Head Over Heels is the sort of movie in which two people make love in front of a fire that's roaring away on a television screen, and the prefab video blaze isn't even meant to be ironic. Amanda (Monica Potter), a lovelorn art restorer, moves in with four obnoxious fashion models who give her a makeover, not because she isn't pretty enough but because she has to learn to view life through the glam mask of a gold digging power babe. Even under the excess blush and powder, though, her sweetness shines through -- at least it does to Jim (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the fashion executive who lives across the way.

Jim is a sweet guy himself, or so it appears until Amanda gazes through the window and catches what looks like her new crush doing something more unsavory than she'd counted on. The notion of an actor as innocuous as Prinze playing a possible bad guy is a paper thin gimmick, but it's all there is to ''Head Over Heels.'' By the time his nature is revealed, the film has gone from bland to dismal. Potter, however, who has a moonstruck glow, deserves a romantic comedy less fake than that fire.

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