The American novelist Nelson Algren famously advised: "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own." In his directorial debut the great character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a shy 40-something limousine driver who breaks the second and third by courting a neurotic fellow New Yorker (Amy Ryan) and then making a disastrous attempt to cook her a home dinner. The movie is a quirky updating of the 1955 Oscar-winner Marty, but less hard-edged.