Boys and Girls

Two children meet on an airplane and immediately begin squabbling. In time, they grow up to be Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani as students at U.C. Berkeley, where their prickly acquaintance ripens into real friendship, and eventually—oh, have you heard this one? The script by Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller (billed as “The Drews”—isn’t that adorable?) is coy and derivative, with the moony hero of The Apartment, the oblivious heroine of Sixteen Candles, the airborne ending of Say Anything and The Graduate's confusing jumble of Bay area geography. The film’s few pluses are enough to put it over: Robert Iscove’s solid direction, the good supporting cast (Jason Biggs, Amanda Detmer, Heather Donahue) and the appealing leads—especially Forlani, a dazzlingly original star in the making.