All that glisters...

Howard Jacobson has already attacked Suzie Gold in these pages for its clichéd portrait of Britain's Jewish community. So is this romantic comedy politically incorrect but nonetheless riotously funny? North London-Jewish stories can provide a rich mine of humour, but Suzie Gold is dross.

A first film by Ric Cantor, whose sparkling pedigree includes working as an "additional writer" on The Ali G Show, it is a mix of thin stereotypes and a feeble plot.

Suffocating in her exuberant, insufferable family, Suzie - convincingly played by the American Summer Phoenix - is being pushed into a conventional marriage to a smug, rich, creepy Jewish suitor.

The film flirts briefly with the prospect: at times, indeed, it feels like a beginner's primer to Judaism. Suzie's voice-over diligently explains the rituals at weddings, funerals and the Jewish New Year and gushes about feeling "part of something much bigger than myself ".

But it is soon clear which way the wind is blowing. Despite the valiant efforts of top-flight character actors Stanley Townsend and Miriam Karlin, Suzie's family comes across as a frightful bunch, with their endless display of permatans, leopardskin prints and gold chains of the kind last seen nestling in Burt Reynolds's chest hair, circa 1973.

Not that Suzie's nice-butseriously-dull Gentile boyfriend (Leo Gregory) represents an attractive alternative. He gives Suzie baffling advice about not wearing a red dress with navy trousers (the film, generally, is big on life philosophy, with further counsel about letting go of gold balloons and following one's heart). But he is otherwise utterly without interest.

Ultimately she must decide between the plush-but-kitsch comforts of Hampstead Garden Suburb and the threadbare, funky cosiness of a Battersea high-rise. It is one of the film's many evasions that this choice has more to do with class and taste than with race, culture or religion.

Suzie Gold
Cert: cert15