M O V I E S Sour Grapes Written and directed by Larry David Starring Steven Weber and Craig Bierko - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ALSO THIS WEEK Two Girls and a Guy Tale of a womanizer and the women who confront him has brains and unrestrained eroticism Sliding Doors Gwyneth Paltrow misses her train and forever alters her life in this romantic comedy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LAST WEEK Nightwatch Dark, dank, disgusting, sadistic and no fun at all: It's the perfect post-"Seven" thriller Wayne Wang Thinking outside the "Chinese Box" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Blue Glow DAILY TV PICKS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - RECENTLY A full list of recent reviews, interviews and table talk. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE ARCHIVES MOVIES TELEVISION INTERVIEWS FEATURES

grape expectations After "Seinfeld," ______ Larry David's big-screen debut is a big letdown. BY LAURA MILLER | Ben Jonson wrote, "In small proportions we just beauties see/And in short measures life may perfect be." Although he was a famous wit, Jonson, of course, wasn't thinking of sitcoms or, more specifically, "Seinfeld," but the couplet still applies. Larry David, co-creator of the TV series, has written and directed his first feature film, "Sour Grapes," and while the movie possesses ample amounts of the qualities that made "Seinfeld" so delightful, somehow what works perfectly for a half-hour sags a bit when it's stretched over an hour and a half. "Sour Grapes" follows the black comic aftermath of Richie Maxwell's (Craig Bierko) big win at a casino slot machine in Atlantic City. His cousin, surgeon Evan Maxwell (Steven Weber), thinks he deserves half the jackpot because he gave Richie two of the quarters used in the winning spin. Each cousin's girlfriend disagrees with her partner; Richie's parsimonious attempts at a compromise just make Evan angrier; and soon the whole conflict escalates into an absurd series of moves and countermoves that leave Richie's mother hospitalized, her house ruined and one of Evan's patients emasculated. The movie boasts plenty of David's quotidian realism -- one reason for the success of "Seinfeld" was the show's acknowledgment that most of us don't spend our time thinking about the large (or even medium-sized) matters that preoccupy most fictional characters. Instead, we dwell on petty injustices, spin out daffy theories and plot ego moves. One of David's signatures is the eccentric random comment, tossed off and never mentioned again. "Mind losing the apple?" Richie says highhandedly to Evan's girlfriend, Joan (Karen Sillas), as the foursome drives down to New Jersey. "I can't be in an enclosed space with fruit. It nauseates me." Another classic David device shows up in a conversation between three television executives who suggest sending an actor's character to Alaska in order to give the actor some "time off." "He's a courtroom artist," the actor protests. "They don't have courts in Alaska!" "Of course they do," his boss responds. "Maybe they don't," another exec ventures. "It's mostly Eskimos up there. I think the chieftains decide the punishments." "They have their bad elements up there just like everyone else," the third retorts. It's the kind of spectacularly stupid exchange most of us engage in at least once a week, and though it has nothing to do with the story of "Sour Grapes," it's still hilarious. Nevertheless, "Sour Grapes" resembles "Seinfeld" too much to work on its own. Weber, as the somewhat-more-reasonable of the two cousins, seems to be offering us his impression of Jerry, while Bierko oscillates between the mannerisms of Kramer and George. It's as if "Seinfeld" exerts an irresistible gravitational pull on both writers and performers, the sitcom's cultural power overwhelming whatever slender ambitions the filmmakers had for the movie itself. "Sour Grapes" orbits "Seinfeld" like one of Jupiter's moons, a peculiar reversal of the usual relationship between big and small screen. With "Seinfeld," David's fondness for the flotsam and jetsam of contemporary life found its ideal vehicle in the sitcom's mundane, incremental format. TV, for all its fantasy elements, feels more like ordinary life than film does. Movies, on the other hand, are supposed to be special. We expect them to add up to something, to see the characters' lives or personalities altered by the story. Otherwise, why put on our shoes and get out of the house? A TV series can afford to build a character by the gradual accretion of quirks until the smallest gesture from George or Elaine wins a laugh that's as much recognition as anything else; we know them almost as well as our own family, and more easily forgive them their flaws, even love them for it. The squabbling characters in "Sour Grapes," by contrast, only come across as pettish and hard, and their idiosyncrasies as non sequiturs. The sole talent of David's that translates smoothly to film is his adept hand at plotting, the almost loving way he traces how a person's small, impulsively selfish action can metastasize into a titanic comeuppance. That, combined with the occasional bright moments of Davidian repartee in "Sour Grapes," make the movie just about watchable, if not entirely worth trekking across town to see. Especially not if it's a Thursday night. SALON | April 24, 1998

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