My First Mister refers to the character played by the always brilliant Albert Brooks. If I'm going through the video store looking for something a little left of center, if it has Albert Brooks in it I'll pick it up. In My First Mister Albert plays a set-in-his-ways buttoned-down manager of a men's clothier in a mall. Before we meet Brooks however we are plunged into the world of Jay (Leelee Sobieski) a seventeen-year-old Los Angeles high school graduate with multiple piercings, tattoos, a goth/punk wardrobe, and an accompanying dreary outlook on her life. She quotes Sylvia Plath, writes nihilistic poetry, and composes amusing eulogies for herself. Jay can't abide her dysfunctional family, which includes an overly cheery (paxil) mother (Carol Kane), who doesn't know how to relate to her, though she isn't about to give up and a stepfather (Michael McKean), who prefers to have as little to do with her as common decency permits.

Jay's biggest problems aside from a penchant for self-mutilation and not having any friends is that she could really use a job, so she can get her own place. During her search for a job her world collides with Randall's (Brooks) whom she soon begins to refer to as R. You couldn't find to characters coming together at such varying angles unless Brooks spoke only Cantonese and Sobieski was blind. Her request for a job in R's high-brow haberdashery, is laughed off to the point where R asks Jay to leave before she scares the customers, but R is a persistent soul and after meeting R halfway in the appearance department she lands a job as the stock girl.

Jay being the needier of the two, she is the first to fall, but fall she does for this 49 year old square with a bit of a sense of humor and a kindness in his eyes. So the two become friends of a sort, R accompanies her to one of her coffee bar hang-outs, but quickly tires and leaves. Though he is slightly smitten by the teen noir he has his habits he must keep which foreshadow a plot twist. We've seen loves that should remain platonic and unrequited, Lost In Translation most recently and Timothy Hutton and Natalie Portman in Beautiful Girls but this seems the most unlikely in every respect. What a testament it is to Sobieski and Brooks (particularly Brooks that we buy into this manipulative and improbable love story with unconditional acceptance.

There are some heartrending surprises ahead as this love affair develops into more of a family affair. I am loathe to give any more of the plot up - it would ruin it for you, suffice to say that we also meet Jay's real father (John Goodman) and find out that R has another lady admirer closer to his age (Mary Kay Place). There are moments in this movie particularly in the very beginning that would have profited from a little more restraint, but once we meet Albert Brooks the fun begins and there's no looking back. Among the many surprises that lay in store for the viewer, the biggest for me was Sobieski (this is the first film I've liked her in) and she is nothing short of wonderful.

The film is the full feature directorial debut from actress Christine Lahti who has given us so many lovable characters as an actress. Toward the end of this film she is required to demonstrate a deft and featherlight touch and I believe she succeeds with flying colors. This is a movie I would recommend unconditionally.