Cupid & Cate

Cupid & Cate is fast-food drama, but you can't turn away from a movie with a dazzling cast including Mary-Louise Parker, Peter Gallagher, Philip Bosco, Bebe Neuwirth, Brenda Fricker, and Joanna Going. This Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie features Parker as Cate, proprietor of an upscale, second-hand clothing store. In handy dramatic terms, the shop is a gleaming repository of old memories--memory itself being something like emotional quicksand for black sheep Cate, who blames her domineering father (Philip Bosco) for her sisters' over-achieving ways as well as for the suffering of her late, alcoholic mother. Newly freed from an engagement to a chilly Brahmin type, Cate begins her life anew with the arrival of a near-perfect fellow (Gallagher) who adores her but is in an uphill fight for survival. The patchy script is riddled with unmodulated emotional pitches and incredible resolutions, but, hey, those actors are charm personified. --Tom Keogh