Dorfman in Love

Deb Dorfman is a nice Jewish girl who never quite blossomed. The quirky 28-year-old accountant attends to everyone’s needs but her own and seeks solace in romance novels on tape. When Deb agrees to house-sit for her longtime crush, a dashing journalist on assignment in Afghanistan, she is uprooted from her sheltered San Fernando Valley home and thrust into the hub of newly revitalized downtown LA. An unlikely friendship with a smooth-talking Egyptian neighbor has Deb trying exotic food, braving the (gasp!) subway and overhauling her look from homely to hip. Who knows what all this will lead to? Maybe to a love that exists outside of her imagination. Sex in the City this is not. Dorfman is more like the Jewish answer to Muriel’s Wedding and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Deb is a refreshingly relatable heroine with a normal job, a normal closet and normal problems. Elliott Gould (SFJFF 2012 Freedom of Expression recipient) is perfect as Deb’s despondent widowed father who mopes around the house delivering uproariously deadpan one-liners. Writer Wendy Kout cut her teeth in sitcoms (Mork & Mindy, Anything But Love) and imbues this delightful indie romcom with just enough screwball humor to keep you chuckling as you root for Deb on her path to self-actualization.