Boys and Girls

"Boys and Girls" is about a boy and a girl who meet when they are both about 12, and carry on a love-hate relationship for the next 10 years, until they finally sleep with each other, with disastrous results. It is clear they're in love, but after that night of bliss, a great chill forms between them, and she doesn't understand why. I thought I did understand why. The other day on the radio, Terry Gross was …

…In the Vatican City, I hope. "Boys and Girls" is soothing and harmless, gentle and interminable. It is about two people who might as well fall in love, since fate and the plot have given them nothing else to do and no one else to do it with. Compared to the wisdom and wickedness of "High Fidelity," this is such a slight movie. It's not that I don't like it. It's that I don't care.