Stars: Kathy Burke, Jennifer Ehle, Ian Hart, Douglas Henshall, Catherine McCormack, Dougray Scott, Emily Woof, David Gray

Director: David Kane

Summary: The marriage of Hannah and Danny crashes around their ears at their own wedding reception. The repercussions spread out to touch the lives of four other thirtysomethings living in Camden, London, Cameron an artist, cleaner and pub singer Mary, single mother Sophie and Liam, a struggling magazine seller.

David Kane's THIS YEAR'S LOVE is a bittersweet comedy that follows a group of London twenty-somethings looking for romance and, of course, that special someone. When an apparently perfect relationship between tattoo artist Danny (Douglas Henshall) and dressmaker Hannah (Catherine McCormack) ends in tears on the wedding day, it's back to the singles scene for both of them. There they meet Liam (Ian Hurt), a passionate geek; Marey (Kathy Burke), a pub singer; Sophie (Jennifer Ehle), a former society brat and single mother; and Cameron (Dougray Scott), a roguish artist. One by one, their paths cross over the course of three years, leading to unusual, sad, and even hilarious situations.

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An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Loveis writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something--possibly love, possibly just sex--that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle.

David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Offor The Full Montyfor neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. The soundtrack is great, too. Imagine that the cast of Trainspottinggate-crashed Four Weddings and a Funeraland the result would be This Year's Love.

On the DVD: Short on-set interviews with the principals and a promotional featurette are supplemented by a sequence of unedited behind-the-scenes footage. The film itself is presented in a good-looking anamorphic (16:9) print. --Mark Walker

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interviews, Featurette, Making Of, Trailer
Year:	1999
Release Date:	February 21, 2000
Runtime:	104 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	E D V 9029
Keywords:	Love, This, Comedy, General, Romantic, Year's
Genre:	Comedy