Casual moviegoers looking for a bubbly romantic comedy with Brittany Murphy will get more than they bargained for in Little Black Book, which builds to a nasty twist that's more Lars von Trier than Meg Ryan. Though this climactic zinger is telegraphed well in advance, the execution still stings beyond what the filmmakers might have intended, at least if they were hoping to warm hearts. Tacked-on coda aside, the film takes chances by splashing around in the muck, casting Murphy as an unsympathetic heroine who tests the limits of human jealousy and exploitation. Of course, she's supposed to be a plucky young go-getter with Diane Sawyer ambitions and a pathological love for Carly Simon, but the film's airy tone never syncs up with its disquieting content.
Early references to Shakespeare's Macbeth and Pandora's box are the first signs that Little Black Book operates on a much darker wavelength than expected. It's Broadcast News meets Jerry Springer's The Ringmaster, as Murphy lands an associate-producer job on a sleazy syndicated talk show hosted by Kathy Bates, who's all Oprah smiles onscreen, but a terror off. When Murphy's boyfriend Ron Livingston mentions offhandedly that he used to date a supermodel who appeared on the show, she begins to wonder about his romantic past and whether he's hiding something important from her. Egged on by coworker Holly Hunter, Murphy rifles through Livingston's Palm Pilot and personal effects in an effort to track down his old girlfriends, including a gynecologist she mistakes for a podiatrist and a sensitive chef (Julianne Nicholson) who still has feelings for him.
In its broad outlines, Little Black Book resembles Noah Baumbach's underrated comedy Mr. Jealousy, in which Eric Stoltz gets so wrapped up in his neurotic investigation of his girlfriend's past lovers that he becomes jealous of himself. But there's none of Stoltz's self-deprecation in Murphy, who instead comes off as an invasive and immature meddler, unworthy of a nice guy like Livingston. She gets her comeuppance in a startling turn of events, but the filmmakers bank too heavily on Murphy's considerable charisma to gloss over her character's overwhelming flaws. Little Black Book deserves some credit for steering the most toothless of subgenres into uncharted territory, but it severely miscalculates the audience's sympathies. It's the rare romantic comedy where the heroine isn't much of a catch.