SEX AND DEATH 101
R, 100 minutes

Should we thank or blame Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, and the rest of the Frat Pack for the Y-chromosome-friendly mutation of the romantic comedy? The so-called chick-flick seems ready for the endangered species list now that these malecentric fairy tales are stuffing the multiplexes. “Sex and Death 101” is one such romantic comedy for dudes, but to characterize it as Apatowian would be a disservice. The film so self-reflexively mocks romantic conventions and so aggressively flaunts chauvinist ideals that it will surely test the patience of many a female viewer. Yet all the while, it somehow manages to reaffirm the ideas of destiny and one true love.

Simon Baker plays Roderick, a groom-to-be who suddenly decides to get in touch with his inner cad when a list of his sexual conquests mysteriously pops up in his e-mail inbox — and it doesn’t just end with his fiancée. Next up on the list is a centerfold, and what man could resist such temptation? Apparently, an oracle-esque machine generated the e-mail, and Roderick simply cannot escape his fate, even when he eventually decides to settle down. Meanwhile, a serial killer — played by eternal woman-child Winona Ryder — is on the loose, preying on hapless men and establishing herself as a feminist cult icon. As you’d expect, she and Roderick cross paths before the credits roll.

Writer-director Daniel Waters, who scripted “Heathers” and “Batman Returns” a decade ago before fading into obscurity, proves he’s still got it. His script is refreshingly original, frank, and insightful. Even though his directorial skills aren’t spectacular, there are fleeting moments of visual inventiveness that truly set the film apart. “Sex and Death 101” has arguably the most anticlimactic cop-out ending since 2005’s French horror exercise “High Tension,” yet somehow Mr. Waters gets away with it. Come to think of it, what’s a romantic comedy without the happily ever after?

Martin Tsai

JELLYFISH
Unrated, 78 minutes

Lately, multi-plotted film stories in which disparate, disaffected, and socially marginalized urban loners connect via random circumstances have become as common as Westerns involving cattle-rustling were in the 1930s. The American brand of this nongenre (popularized by Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia,” and Paul Haggis’s “Crash”) tends to lay on the irony, the social messages, or both with a heavy hand. “Jellyfish,” a new Israeli film written by Shira Geffen and co-directed by Ms. Geffen and Etgar Keret, retools a predominantly American story export with a subtlety and care that aren’t standard equipment in Hollywood.

Everyone in the Tel Aviv of “Jellyfish” appears to be imprisoned by their own expectations. Batia (Sarah Adler), a borderline somnambulistic young woman raised on disappointment by irredeemably narcissistic parents, expects nothing from life. Rendered single by her inability to communicate, teetering on unemployment, and resigned to a residential situation that even a squatter would find grim, she has subconsciously seen to it that nothing is precisely what she gets. Keren (Noa Knoller), a bride in an assemblyline wedding at the banquet hall in which Batia works, expects that her bottomless neediness will be satisfied by her husband. Joy (Ma-nenita de La torre), a newly immigrated Philippine domestic, expects that her employers will meet her lack of Hebrew language skills halfway, but her cheerful enthusiasm and forbearance are received with confused hostility at every turn.

“There’s no plot development,” a co-worker says as Batia unaccountably fixates on her colleague’s family home movies. “I don’t like developments,” Batia responds, fully engaged and in the moment for the first time in the film. Via an outward rippling circle of additional characters, including a wordless little girl, an actress and her increasingly estranged mother, and a fellow guest at Keren’s honeymoon hotel, this regionally piquant stew of mishaps, missteps, and chances to bond develops nicely.

Directed with an unpretentious invention and energetic authority unusual in a debut feature, “Jellyfish” is a film of varied visual surprises and finely observed and parsed-out details that help keep the film afloat even when onscreen dramatic events chart a familiar plot course. “Jelly Fish” determinedly makes its way to the end credits with ease and legitimate charm rather than stooping to punishing preciousness or the patent cruelty to characters (and by extension to audiences) that are increasingly the norm in this enduringly fashionable narrative arena.

Bruce Bennett