A charming performance from one of two female leads can't save this mixed bag of a picture that tries to blend RomCom, absurd humor and a dash of fantasy, and ultimately fails at all three.
Cousins Vivien and Chloe inherit their aunt's bakery, but disagree on how to operate it. Vivien (Aimee Teegarden from TV's "Friday Night Lights") wants to keep it traditional, while Chloe (Broadway musical star Krysta Rodriguez) wants to switch it up with modern, healthier recipes.
But their late aunt (the great Linda Lavin, hamming it up) left the place in debt, and an evil, even hammier-acting banker seeks to foreclose. So the plucky girls and their friends hatch a plan to keep it open.
The lazily titled "Bakery in Brooklyn" has a dream-like quality to it. With its obvious set pieces and soundstage, rich and vibrant cinematography, a charming, circus-y score, and fantastic elements such as a blind shoe-shine man who can divine people's personalities by caressing their footwear, the filmmakers are obviously shooting for New York-based magical realism like "Little Manhattan."
The result, unfortunately, is much less successful than that superior predecessor.
The biggest problem is the script, which is overloaded with ancillary characters, unimportant side plots and absurd situations.
While it distracts us with stories about a bumbling nerd trying to hook up with a beautiful Spanish girl, and an Eastern European drug dealer who finds a friend in the cousins' elderly uncle (Ernie "Pumbaa" Sabella), the movie short-changes us on the most important part of the plot -- the two cousins' personality clash. It's touched upon, but then driven to a heated confrontation in the first act. After that, there wasn't much interesting left about them for the rest of the movie.
And that's a shame, because Rodriguez is a joy to watch. Vivacious, witty and adorable, hers is the most enjoyable and well-developed character in a film otherwise stocked with rubber-stamped archetypes.
Meandering character studies, particularly those set in Manhattan, a city well-suited to meandering, can often be enjoyable, and transcend even the most threadbare of a plot.
But "Bakery in Brooklyn" is loaded with so much unnecessary nonsense, its story gets buried and it loses its heart.
And a romantic comedy without heart is like a cannoli without filling. It leaves you craving the sweet it's missing.
