Four 30-something friends (Jon Cryer, Adrian Pasdar, Tim Guinee, Adam Oliensis) try to understand women.
Mark (Cryer, who co-wrote) is just about to move in with his girlfriend Natasha (Kristen Wilson), although it's a commitment he is not too hot on.
Runyon (Guinee) keeps trying to get up the nerve to get Kathryn (Dana Wheeler Nicholson) back, who's since moved away; he tries to get some advice from his idol (Roscoe Lee Brown), a respected playwright.
Phil (Oliensis, another co-writer) is looking at client Caroline (Kristin Scott Thomas) although he is married to Lori (Arabella Field).
Josh (Pasdar) can't decide among several women, whether it's a one night stand (Lianna Pai), Phil's abused sister (Paige Turco), or a woman he meets in the street (Mia Sara).
While there is occasionally a decent line or small scene, a lot of the dialogue tries to be hip, smart, and emotional, but not succeeding, and the acting becomes self obvious. People talk to the camera, the men all argue at once but sound a bunch of cackling incoherent hens, a woman is accused of "asking for it" (asking to be punched) when she and a man argue.
As for the characters, it's as if the filmmakers decided to create iconic types of male and female, few of them original or realistic. Some of the women are fantasy objects, some are there for the men to blame or make the male characters appear as the wounded half when they only have themselves to blame when the women are driven away.
While I get that love is not always pretty, in this case it seems more of a "why bother" and "why these people" if they are meant to be a representation of the search for love.
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