Despite the success of My Best Friend's Wedding, Aussie director P.J. Hogan certainly hasn't gone Hollywood. Unconditional Love, co-written with his wife and fellow filmmaker Jocelyn Moorhouse, is a deeply eccentric concoction that ranges from campy comedy to murder mystery. If the whole thing doesn't really come off, it does have much that is funny, giddy, or simply weirder than all-get-out. Kathy Bates enjoys herself as a discarded wife who impulsively flies to England to attend the funeral of her idol, a beloved singer--Jonathan Pryce, in glorious sequined form. Meeting his "valet" (read: secret gay lover), Rupert Everett, she determines to find the dead man's murderer. It's hard to get the tone right on this kind of movie, but it's also easy to like a film that finds time for tributes to Barry Manilow (hey, Hogan rehabilitated ABBA in Muriel's Wedding) and the reassuring spirit of Julie Andrews. --Robert Horton
