The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Peachy Keen Productions—PTE Studio

The Magic Pixie Dream Girl opens with the promise of a safe, comfortable, typical love story, then goes on to demonstrate exactly why we’ve had far too many.

The titular character is trying to salvage her mission to deliver a safe, saleable love story to a struggling playwright who insists on writing a story that features plausible characters instead.

The writing is spot on. When things are safe and predictable, the playwright is a success. When he tries to create characters with actual depth, he’s being shredded, all at the hands of a cookie-cutter character archetype fighting desperately for relevance.

As a second effort from a company that debuted last year, this is very promising stuff. Watching them grow and develop is going to be a treat.

Ryan Hauff