Orange County

Skilfully balancing comedic set-pieces with real issues, the film undulates through a screenplay that plays up the genre formula...

It's one of those movies like Ghost World and Legally Blonde where the description can't do justice to the experience. It will sound like the kind of movie that, if you are over 17, you don't usually go to see. But it isn't.

...Black and Jane Adams (as a Stanford admissions desk girl) steal the show with their straight-faced approach to putting out a fire.

It twists, just a little. Part lessons-learned melodrama and part laff-riot, the movie works very hard to keep all its balls in the air.

From the uptight Shaun to the spaced-out Lance via associated dopeheads, moronic preppies and nightmarish relatives, Kasdan clearly has a deep and highly contagious affection for his characters.