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ARTICLES - "'TOUCH ME': A BIT SUPERFICIAL "

'TOUCH ME': A BIT SUPERFICIAL by John Hartl
The Seattle Times , May 8, 1998

It's supposed to be an AIDS drama with a difference, but "Touch Me" boils down to a familiar suspense game. Once again, we wait for nearly two hours for an emotion-challenged male to work up the courage to tell his girlfriend that he loves her. Adam (Michael Vartan) is a handsome Los Angeles gym manager who sleeps around and doesn't do much to recruit or satisfy customers.

Bridgette (Amanda Peet) is an actress and aerobics instructor who works for Adam while trying to land a better part than "Countess Vanessa," the character she once played on a soap opera. She's rehearsing "Speed the Plow," and rumor has it that David Mamet has been in the audience.

Although Adam is told that Bridgette has "a lot of class, not your type," he's been watching her and asks her out. She doesn't want an office romance, partly because she knows he's made himself too available. But he's persistent, brings her lunch, gives her a parking space with her own name, and she gives in.

They're almost ready to move in together when both are forced to confront former lovers, one of them dying of AIDS. What starts out as a romantic comedy, and a moderately enjoyable one, gradually grows more serious. Yet the darker it turns, the more superficial "Touch Me" seems.

Appealing as the actors are, honest as the script tries to be about the shock of being diagnosed HIV-positive, there are too many unexamined characters, too many pointless distractions (Greg Louganis in a gratuitous cameo role) and too many lines like "Look, I'm trying to be here for you."

Although Vartan, who played Noah Wyle's brother in "The Myth of Fingerprints," charms his way through the early scenes, he never suggests why Adam should suddenly commit himself to one person. Neither, for that matter, does the script. Bridgette is just as much a mystery, though Peet (Jennifer Aniston's sister in "She's the One") does have the advantage of showier scenes.

The liveliest characters, all seen too briefly, are Adam's coke-sniffing brother, their callous father, Adam's racist ex-girlfriend (how did these two end up together?), an outspoken mother with AIDS and Bridgette's absurdly insensitive roommate, who uses a Hollywood funeral for networking. The writer-director, H. Gordon Boos ("Red Surf"), often seems to be having a better time with them.

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