It is Scott's work as the savagely articulate Roger, a tireless would-be seducer, bottomlessly self-confident and oblivious to rejection, that is the film's glistening and provocative centerpiece.

Funny, sad, and skeptical in about equal measures, it announces writer-director Dylan Kidd as a filmmaker with a bright future.

One of the juiciest male characters to pop up in an independent film this year.

Takes both its characters and the audience to the depths, but it's a journey Kidd redeems with wit and fluency and, ultimately, a deeply persistent humanism.

Kidd, a first-time writer and director, has created a sophisticated but intriguingly toxic comedy of manners.

Experiencing this film is like hurtling down a verbal slalom.

Sly, sophisticated and surprising.

Revives the art of smart, scathing movie conversation as it skewers Manhattan's singles scene while providing a goodly number of laughs. Like its subject, the movie may have its prickly moments, but it's awfully fun to watch.

Mines laughs from the ways in which its antihero's reductive philosophy consistently goes kerflooey in his face, but there's a weary sadness to it as well.

A little too programmed in its despair, but it coasts along on the jagged music of the modern lothario's song.

Scott owns the film from scene one.

There are times when the movie's entertainment value verges on the scandalous. [4 November 2002, p. 110]

There's a maddening ambiguity at the core of writer-director Dylan Kidd's remarkably cynical, and bracingly intelligent, debut movie. It's the kind of thing that is just nasty enough to start arguments in cafes and bars.

Kidd has a great ear for dialogue, and he throws in a few unexpected twists. But the real fun is watching an established pro and a newcomer run with the script.