Unburdened by the heavy nihilism that dogged his so-called "Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy" (Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation, and Nowhere), Gregg Araki's Splendor is his brightest, most tolerable work to date, a day-glo romantic fantasy that sweetly considers the long-term possibilities of a drunken three-way. A camp reworking of Noel Coward's bohemian farce Design For Living, the film stars Beverly Hills 90210's Kathleen Robertson as an aspiring actress and self-described "good girl" drawn to two polar opposites at a Halloween rave: Johnathon Schaech, a bespectacled (and thus sensitive) freelance rock critic, and Matt Keeslar, a neanderthal drummer for a sub-par punk band. Robertson falls for her competing lovers equally, but rather than choose between them, she allows both to move in and share her affections. This sort of premise would normally bring out Araki the obnoxious provocateur, but Splendor instead carries a bubbly, inconsequential tone that marks a surprising and welcome change of pace. While Araki's self-conscious dialogue still pounds with leaden irony, he continues to make great strides as an avant-garde stylist, painting the film's appealing surfaces with bold splashes of primary colors, eye-popping artificial sets, and a hypnotic art-pop sound design. Were he to invest the story with the same conviction, Splendor might have been the blissful, forward-thinking modern romance he intended. But for all his gifts, Araki is paralyzed by cool self-awareness, caught in the impossible position of trying to make this trio emotionally resonate while snickering at the Three's Company phoniness of it all. Love stories require some measure of earnestness and heart, but Araki seems to have deposited his on the beach in The Living End, and hasn't recovered it since.