Cherry

Available for rent at all Blockbuster videostores as of 4-18-00. This is a movie about a 29 year old virgin who decides that she wants to have a kid the old fashioned way but without all the other baggage such as love and marriage. Jake plays ob-gyn Beverly Kirk. It played to a packed house at the LA Independent Film Festival 4-17-99 and yours truly was there, impending sinus infection and all. Jake was absolutely fabulous! He played the doctor as a very sweet person who is absolutely not bitter that his mother named him "Beverly" and who is great with kids and who takes an instant fancy to the female lead. His hair was medium length and the same dark, brownish-blonde as in Pushing Tin [which he filmed while doing Cherry]. He always had a five o'clock shadow and the producer, when asked, indicated that Jake just felt that the character would look that way. He even has a few scenes with a stuffed dog that beeps. This is a definite 'must see' for all Jake fans. You'll want to grab him off the screen and take him home.

My only gripe about this movie is that as edited, it concentrates almost entirely on the chick - Leila. True, the movie is about her and the actreess who plays her is the one that the producers thought would get them a distributor but I think we need to step back and view the bigger picture.

Leila was supposed to be a woman who was po'd enough at being left at the alter that she kept a vow of not dating guys or even giving them the time of day for over 10 years. If we're to believe that she would chuck this resolve like "that" for Jake's Dr. Kirk, we have to know something about Dr. Kirk. We know he's got a British first name - Beverly. We know he's a ob-gyn. We know he's incredibly lucious and adorable. But oh gee. Presumably Leila's met other good-looking single men before this. They might not have had a girl's first name but still. The script went some way towards giving us a little insight by having Leila tell her sister, after her first appointment, that he was very polite and soft spoken and she didn't know how to speak to him. This part was either cut or never filmed but it was short enough [it wouldn't have taken more then a few seconds to do] and it would have given us some insight as to Leila's POV as to Dr. Kirk.

Also cut was a scene where Dr. Kirk tells the bartender about how, as a boy, he accepted a dappled grey leather jacket in lieu of plain black to save his poor, overworked mother $69. He explains how he went around school looking like a roan, or a palomino. One kid called him a beaverhead. {Why? I have no idea.] And I think, given the way Jake played the doctor, I think he would have done this part in such a way that we would see how it was more important for his character to take his mother into consideration, rather then be like all the 'other kids' at his mother's expense. And there was some other stuff wherein we learn that he didn't have any friends. And yet, here's this guy who is still incredibly sweet. If we saw this, we'd be better able to understand what it was that Leila actually saw him because while he didn't tell her, it would be a quality that she could feel.

They also cut a part where the boy Jack told Leila that Dr. Kirk was the "best one". I suppose the kids were actually really good at conveying the fact that they really liked Dr. Kirk. Jake just has this incredible rapport with kids and kids have a wonderful rapport with him on screen. To see the little girl Red just "beam" whenever she sees him let's you know that he's a great guy. Maybe the producers thought that the kids gave us enough "inside" to the likeability of Dr. Kirk, I don't know. Leila gave him "longing looks" but again, without a better insight into his character, we might not comprehend why she would be drawn to him other then the fact that the script told her to.

Cherry Official Site - Learn how a movie is made from step one at this really informative site. Also, check out stuff for sale to pick up posters, scripts and slides.

A link to a review of "Cherry"