There are chick-flicks for girls, chick-flicks for guys and then there are date-movies that wrestle with the land in-between. Movies like Prime. Rafi (Uma Thurman) is a miserable 37 year old divorcé who finds solace from therapist Lisa (Meryl Streep). Then Rafi meets 23 year old Dave (Bryan Greenberg) and the mis-matched pair hit it off. Lisa approves until she realises that this Dave is her son. Internally outraged, Rafi is not Jewish for a start, Lisa has a crisis of professional faith: do what’s best for her son (as a mother) or what’s best for her client (as a therapist).

Some chick-flicks go for laughs (The Sweetest Thing), some for tears (Beaches). Date movies usually go for a bit of both, straddling the genre fence to provide some conversational grist for the bus-ride home. Yet Prime provides very little of either. There are some promising ideas from writer/director Ben Younger who tackles bold concepts like religion, culture and the age-gap. Many scenes are wry and witty. Therapy sessions in which Lisa learns much more about her sons penis than she ever wanted to (“I didn’t even know David had a penis”) are brazen and funny. Streep is classy, Thurman solid, Greenberg spunky – the three are fun on screen but simply can’t make the material shine.

Younger’s script is lumpy and never really gets to grips with the issues he tries to raise. Whether this was sabotaged in the editing suite or lost in shoot, the result is uneven, uncertain and rather uninteresting for a date-movie. While the sex-appeal of the leads will certainly enhance a solid relationship, the viewing experience will do nothing for anyone hoping to see their first date ever again.

 // COLIN FRASER