Julie Thurber (Marisa Coughlan) intends to lead the Alpha Omega Pi sisters to win against the Tri Omegas by helping mentally challenged athletes for the regional Games. Carolyn McDuffy (Christina Ricci) and Jeanine Kryszinsky (Dominique Swain) disagree with the handicap work. The perky Carolyn is assigned Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris). She finds him to be endearing while he's in love with her. She tries to set up a double-date with Cici Pinkus (Melissa McCarthy) but it goes horribly wrong. She falls in love with Pumpkin horrifying everybody.

Its wacky satire is somewhat funny. The over the top sorority girls get a few laughs. It is Christina Ricci's absolute commitment to this character that truly sells it. She's hilarious. The love affair isn't given much preparation. That's probably the biggest problem. It's written as a given. Also I wish Pumpkin is a deeper character. He's a bit too simplistic. Nevertheless this is funny little dark satire.

"Pumpkin" slips mercurially through the genres ending up somewhere around black comedy with farcical overtones and biting undercurrents as it tells of a privileged, superficial sorority sister (Ricci) who "gets real" and falls for a mentally challenged man (Harris) while coaching him for a Special Olympics type event. The film boldly treads on thin ice, clumsily at times, as it tramples social constructs from decorum to morality while managing to maintain a marginally interesting storyline. Probably a real achievement given the experience of the auteur, "Pumpkin" will likely end up a love it or hate it flick of modest significance. Worth a look as a curiosity if nothing more. (B)

*Spoiler warning - 2nd paragraph* Pumpkin is not a black comedy. It is not a farce. It is not a drama, not a romance, not a satire, and not a parody. All the things that Pumpkin is not seem to really confuse people, and when they're confused, and don't get it, they don't like it. But if you go into this movie without real expectations, you will probably find yourself very pleasantly surprised, especially if you pay careful attention to the Cinderella reference at the end...

*spoilers in the following paragraph* What Pumpkin is, is completely surreal (like a fairy tale). The plot is surreal: Sorority girl Caroline McDuffy has a perfect and not-normal-in-its-normalcy life, until she falls in love with the retarded Pumpkin. The presentation is surreal: I've read more comments that say "it's not believable when Kent lives through falling off a cliff in a car that blow up." It's not supposed to be realistic or believable, and more than the scene where a nun and some rats block Caroline's line of sight, or the scene where her poetry teacher kneels to her, or the scene where Pumpkin hits Kent, or the scene where Carolin takes Pumpkin to the ball. The acting and dialogue and tone are surreal - just a bit too two-dimensional, plastic, clichéd, but it's fakery with such depth (rather reminds me of Holly Golightly; a phony, but a real phony). Completely bizarre.

In addition to surreal, Pumpkin is also funny, edgy, over-the-top, sometimes touching, and ultimately ambiguous. Therein is the brilliance of Pumpkin - it keeps you on edge, guessing. But as long as you're not trying to analyze it, box it, type it, or whatever, that's fun.