And As For The Movie...

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

He sings chorales, declaims a scene from Hamlet and very persuasively fakes a suicide. He is a dutiful son and a shameless stud, a romantic egotist and sometimes a little boy lost. Few movies offer a performer the opportunity to let his talents cascade forth in the breathless rush that Two Girls and a Guy provides Robert Downey Jr.

Except that "movie" doesn't seem quite the right term for it. At best, it's a rather murkily photographed one-act play, confined to a single setting and to real time by writer-director James Toback. Indeed, if he had developed his situation--two girls discover that their guy has been blithely having his way with both of them simultaneously--he might have given us a chic, updated version of one of those old-fashioned farces that once upon a time regaled Broadway.

But Toback is a rather serious and self-conscious fellow. So, after a perky start, his work turns into a meandering wrangle. He flirts with a semidaring resolution--a cozy little menage a trois--but doesn't quite have the gumption to go there. Instead, he lurches into a darkness that contains the promise of redemption (or at least responsible adulthood) for his wayward protagonist. We don't believe it for a second. We do, however, believe in the talent of his actors. The vengeful women--a coolly elegant Heather Graham and a flat-voiced, sharp-minded Natasha Gregson Wagner--are more than mere accompanists to Downey's tour de force; they're full-scale partners, finding arresting dissonances in this unfinished chamber piece.

--By Richard Schickel