The odd couple

>> Leelee Sobieski co-muses with Albert Brooks in My First Mister

by JOANNE LATIMER

A film starring Albert Brooks is always a good idea. If you can forgive a few disastrous misfires, like The Scout, what's left is a career worth watching. The promise of Brooks is the only way you could expect the film-going public to see a movie with a title like My First Mister. It sounds fatally nostalgic, but an actor like Brooks can be counted on to keep things black-hearted. He does, with the help of Leelee Sobieski, and as a result My First Mister isn't half bad.

The best half is the acting. Sobieski plays a sour punk girl with suicidal tendencies and a thing for cemeteries. Hell-bent to die at 17, she writes her own eulogies in a journal and shows her mother nothing but contempt. Mom, played by Carol Kane, is a Doris Day throwback who sings show tunes and makes Jell-O desserts.

Because of her all-black wardrobe and facial piercings, Sobieski can't find an after-school job. She ends up in a mall, applying at an uptight mens' clothing store. That's where she meets Brooks. He's wrestling with a dismembered mannequin in the window and Sobieski hands him the mannequin's arm, saying, "Need a hand?" It's a classic Brooks joke, signalling the beginning of the film's fun.

Well, it's not fun, exactly, but it's a witty two-hander between a 49-year-old store clerk and an edgy teenaged girl. Director Christine Lahti (Lieberman in Love) plays them off against each other wonderfully. Sobieski develops a crush on Brooks, improbably, and they learn how to let other people into their lives. She imagines that he's her lover and he imagines that he's her savior. They spend way too much time together, at work and at play, and Sobieski quickly drops the punk act. The transformation comes too easily for my liking, as she removes her piercings with little remorse and suddenly starts being nice to her mom.

But the trademark Albert Brooks one-liners make My First Mister worth it. When his long-lost relative askes what he learned in college, Brooks pauses then deadpans, "Give me a second. I'll think of it." So, what did I learn from this movie? That a film starring Brooks is always a good idea.

My First Mister opens Friday, Oct. 19