Anything but Love

2002 Drama

A woman is forced to decide which of her dreams she'd like to come true in this musical-comedy drama. Billie Golden (Isabel Rose) is a young woman who dreams of being a successful cabaret singer and often imagines herself performing in a swank lounge or starring in a classic movie musical of the 1940s. At the moment, however, Billie is singing in a dingy cocktail lounge near an airport and lives in a ramshackle row house in Queens with her hard-drinking mother (Alix Korey). One day, Billie bumps into an old friend from high school, Greg Ellenbogen (Cameron Bancroft); as it happens, Greg is now a very successful lawyer, and he still carries a torch for Billie. While Greg loves Billie and can easily give her all the creature comforts of life, she's also infatuated with Elliot (Andrew McCarthy), a hipster piano player who believes in her abilities as a singer. When Greg asks Billie for her hand in marriage, she's forced to decide between love and security or the career in music for which she's always longed. Also screened under the title Standard Time, Anything but Love includes an appearance by legendary entertainer Eartha Kitt; leading lady Rose also wrote the film's screenplay. more..

Director: Robert Cary

Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Isabel Rose, Cameron Bancroft, Alix Korey, Ilana Levine

 39 Reviews  1 Awards

Reviews

  • Filmed in the colors of newborn Technicolor, plotted as a tribute to the conventions of Hollywood romance, filled with standard songs, it's by and for people who love those kinds of movies. Others will find it cliched and predictable, but they won't understand.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    29 November 2012

  • Robert Cary's Anything but Love is that rarity, an hommage to the sweeping Technicolor Hollywood love story of the '40s and '50s that works.

    Kevin Thomas - Los Angeles Times

    29 November 2012

  • The film wears its heart--and its nostalgia--on its sleeve, but while it's clearly made by people who love old Hollywood musicals, it never stoops to being just a vehicle for smug genre references.

    - The Chicago Tribune

    29 November 2012

  • The frustration of this good-hearted, off-key warble of an indie, written by Rose with Robert Cary, who directed, is that the filmmaking pales when compared with the classic elements of 1950s and early '60s romantic musicals to which it pays homage.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    29 November 2012

  • A pleasant, good-natured picture that struggles, gallantly if vainly, to recapture the style and sensibility of a studio musical on the severely limited budget of an independent film.

    Dave Kehr - The New York Times

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Most Promising New Actress

    San Diego Film Festival (2002)

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