French Exit is no mere romantic comedy. Instead, it's a low-budget film that has the bravery and conviction to take on perhaps the last taboo topic: the film industry. It's likely that for their savagely original portrayal of Los Angeles as an amoral city full of greedy agents, callous studio heads, and desperate actors, director Daphna Kastner and stars Mädchen Amick and Jonathan Silverman will all be blacklisted by a Hollywood establishment that doesn't take kindly to gentle ribbing. Given this, it's all the more unfortunate that French Exit is little more than a mediocre trifle. Kastner's film debut tells the story of a pair of young screenwriters (Silverman and Amick) who both hanker for the same writing gig. They meet, bicker, meet several more times, bicker some more, realize they are meant for each other, are torn apart by a silly misunderstanding, and separate shortly before the sort of ending that will come as a surprise only to those who have never seen a romantic comedy before. French Exit is a monumentally formulaic and predictable film, the sort of movie where supporting characters arbitrarily conspire to keep the film's lovers apart and then just as arbitrarily plot to reunite them. Of course, romantic comedies are inherently formulaic, but sometimes a film is so charming, so witty, and so filled with real, sympathetic characters that it overcomes its inherent flaws. French Exit is not that sort of film. Silverman, as usual, is smug, overbearing, and unlikable. Amick is marginally better as his blandly perky love interest, but the two never develop anything resembling romantic chemistry, and the film's tame satire of Hollywood shenanigans is nothing that hasn't been done better in countless other films.