You may remember ...

...Elizabeth Reaser as the woman on this season's Grey's Anatomy who was disfigured in a ferry accident, lost her memory, and wound up looking (after surgery) quite a bit like the above picture. Reaser stars in Maria Maggenti's Puccini for Beginners, which is out on DVD. If Woody Allen made a lesbian comedy it would be something like this; everyone is a smart New Yorker who when they aren't writing who talks compulsively about relationships.

Allegra (Reaser) has just been dumped by a girlfriend (Julianne Nicholson) when she meets and beds Grace (Gretchen Mol) and Philip (Justin Kirk) in quick succession. Only catch: Grace and Philip just broke up with each other. There's a good deal of farcical plot mechanics but the more important thing is that Puccini may be the first post-sexual orientation romantic comedy; the idea of rigidly defined roles isn't important and in fact is laughed off by most of the characters. Sure they're all New Yorkers, one might say. But a world in which received ideas about identity politics and the fluidity of sexuality may be the next great breakthrough for the movies.