The main character is short and weird. He is supremely ill-equipped for the swinging singles scene he is surrounded by in Manhattan. He is sensitive and funny, and he has a tall friend who revels in the opportunities life sends his way. Woody Allen and Tony Roberts it isn't, though. Saul (Ticket to Heaven) Rubinek and Gerrit Graham it is, and thanks to them, Soup for One succeeds. Rubinek, a Canadian, plays a newswriter for an underground cable TV station. He describes one of his typical blind dates as "an ex-addict from Queens who had herself surgically altered to resemble Janis Joplin." But he's also a hopeless romantic who carries in his wallet a police artist's sketch of his dream girl. The suave Graham is a news anchorman. He corrals Rubinek into a singles weekend at a hotel in the Catskills, where the shy friend is vigorously seduced by SCTV's Andrea Martin. There he also meets an approximation of his dream girl, Marcia (Welcome Back, Kotter) Strassman. Strassman owns a roommate referral service, and her father is an adult bookstore owner who is having a Beethoven's Birthday Sale. ("Did you ever see so many men in raincoats looking for a bargain?" he asks.) The film is funny and warm, if familiar. (R)
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