Info: Opens today at area theaters; rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language; 98 minutes.

After establishing themselves with an inoffensive, poorly made LDS romantic comedy, "The Singles Ward," Utah's Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter branch out with the first movie filmed at their Stone Five Studios in Provo: an inoffensive, poorly made Jewish romantic comedy. Chicago schoolteacher Sarah (Robyn Cohen) hides her Gentile boyfriend (Greg Cromer) from her parents (Lainie Kazan and Seymour Cassel) by inventing a fictional Jewish-doctor boyfriend, then hires an actor (Tony Daly) to portray the fake. Keeping up the charade gets harder as Sarah and Dr. Boyfriend start falling for each other. James Sherman makes an unsteady directing debut adapting his stage play (which the Hale Centre Theatre has produced a time or two), which, for all the Hollywood actors present (besides veterans Kazan and Cassel, "Sex and the City's" Willie Garson pops in as Sarah's nebbish brother), still has the stilted dialogue and wooden feel of a regional theater production.

Charlie Bartlett

Info: Opens today in theaters everywhere; rated R for language, drug content and brief nudity; 97 minutes.

There is probably a way to make a movie about teen prescription-drug abuse that is funny without being problematic, but this movie doesn't find it. The title character is a rich kid (Anton Yelchin) who lands in a public high school and tries to ingratiate himself by anointing himself the school psychiatrist and dispensing his leftover medication to his fellow students. The script by first-timer Gustin Nash can't begin to handle the Pandora's box of issues this story unleashes, from Charlie's relationship with his oblivious mom (Hope Davis) to the power struggle with his principal (Robert Downey Jr.), whose daughter (Kat Dennings) Charlie is dating. Jon Poll, an editor ("Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers") making his directing debut, has trouble transitioning from humor to seriousness - and ends up mocking characters who need our sympathy the most.

-Sean P. Means