Why do the Buddhist slackers get all the chicks?

By Josh Drimmer

Dex is your not-so-average Lao Tzu-quoting, pot-smoking, Buddhist monk-admiring, kindergarten teacher who gets all the chicks...and just happens to have the figure of Fat Albert. Based in part on real-life kindergarten teacher Duncan North (who also co-wrote the screenplay), Dex is the main character of The Tao of Steve, writer-director Jenniphr Good-man's impressive debut film. Though the plot suffers from a formulaic "guy learns to live a better life by meeting a better girl" storyline, The Tao of Steve is worth seeing for Dex alone, thanks in no small part to character actor Donal Logue. Logue (Reindeer Games, The Patriot), who deservedly won a grand jury prize at Sundance, comes through with a hilarious, charming performance as the Taoist philosopher-slacker. With the bulk of the movie on Logue's shoulders (and stomach), his strengths outweigh most of the movie's flaws. Only the standard romantic comedy plotting makes this romantic comedy a little, well, heavier than it should be.

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When we first meet Dex, who "used to be like Elvis" in college, he's at his 10-year reunion, where his classmates are both horrified and amused by his transformation into a cross between "fat Elvis" and Peter Pan. Not only has Dex managed to achieve as little as possible—working just three days a week and living in a Santa Fe adobe—he's still getting mad play, even scoring at the reunion itself with a married woman in the library stacks. Abiding by a self-invented philosophy (the "Tao of Steve") that he's obviously spent way too much spare time on, Dex gets women simply by feigning a monk-like detachment from his prey ("We pursue that which retreats from us").

Inspired by such Steves as Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin, Hawaii Five-O's Steve McGarritt, and the ultimate Steve, Steve McQueen, Dex envisions this ideal state of being "Steve" as becoming "the man on the horse...the guy who never tries to impress women but always gets the girl." The only problem is, Dex finds himself breaking his own rules when he meets Syd (Greer Goodman, director Jenniphr's sister), the only woman he can't help but want, and who sees his intellectualism as a mere front.

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The Tao of Steve Directed by Jenniphr Goodman Starring: Donal Logue Greer Goodman York Square Cinema

Tao is at its best when Donal Logue is solidly in the foreground, explaining Long Island Iced Tea in terms of world religion courses, shooting whipped cream into his pudgy golden retriever's mouth, and spit-ting out wisdom like "Doing stuff is overrated...Hitler did a lot of stuff, but wouldn't the world have been better off if he stayed at home and got stoned?" The laid-back, natural tone of the movie, well-matched to its Santa Fe setting, makes these exchanges all the more entertaining, with dialogue that sounds more like a funny conversation between friends than actors reading lines.

Unfortunately, even though the flirtation between Syd and Dex adheres to the movie's conversational tone, things feel forced once Goodman begins to direct the romantic part of this comedy into the same gooey territory Hollywood has used in so many films of the genre. The inevitable happens: Dex finally finds out he's been a fake and his Tao is as flawed as any other code for living, and he eventually plunges into a monogamous relationship with Syd, his equal in love and intelligence.

Though Greer Goodman isn't a bad
grown-up foil to Logue, Goodman doesn't have enough good lines for her to shed a certain stiffness that is particularly annoying in a comedy, even for a straight role. Just as she spoils Dex's fun, Syd spoils it for the audience as well. Whether that's because she's playing a badly-written role too well or playing a flawed role not well enough, something falls out of the movie's chemistry. One almost wishes that Dex could have just gone on having one-night stands and spreading his philosophy for the entire 90-minute running time, questionable values be damned.

However, even as the movie heads toward its necessary happy ending, there's still more than enough laughs to keep the movie afloat, and enough chemistry between Goodman and Logue to keep the sweetness from turning to syrup. Just as Dex never really aims to be a Buddhist monk, The Tao of Steve isn't really attempting to be revolutionary or art cinema—it's just a good romantic comedy, another in the wave of crowd-pleasing independent films that Swingers and The Full Monty started. And for that, it delivers on its promise far more successfully than most of this summer's big-budget movies. You can't go wrong if you see The Tao of Steve with your contempt for romantic comedy locked away, at your side a significant other—and a big bucket of popcorn.

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