Little Black Book

Brittany Murphy, Holly Hunter, Ron Livingston. An assistant on a daytime tabloid TV show finds her life begins to resemble that of her show's guests when she snoops through her boyfriend's PDA-and the stage is set for one shocking surprise after another! 2004/color/107 min/PG-13.

Half screwball romance, half television satire, Little Black Book follows insecure Stacy Holt (Brittany Murphy, Uptown Girls, 8 Mile), who has an idyllic relationship with a great guy named Derek (Ron Livingston, Office Space) and a job as an associate producer for a daytime talk show that fuses Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake. Then a cynical co-worker named Barb (Holly Hunter, Broadcast News) persuades Stacy to delve into Derek's Palm Pilot to learn more about his ex-girlfriends--which sends Stacy into a spiral of ever-increasing paranoid compulsion. Little Black Book takes some unexpected plot twists that some viewers will find inexplicable and others will find weirdly fascinating. The movie's split personality makes it unsuccessful as a whole but compelling in parts. Hunter steals the show, in more ways than one. Also featuring Kathy Bates, (Misery, About Schmidt) and Julianne Nicholson (Seeing Other People). --Bret Fetzer