"It's all very The Graduate," observes the father of 15-year-old Oscar Grubman when he discovers his son has slept with a 40-something family friend.

"Except he hasn't graduated" is the acid reply from the boy's step-mother Eve (Weaver) - the real object of his romantic obsession.

Oscar (Stanford) a precocious but not unlikeable teen given to quoting Voltaire, is smitten with the erudite second-wife of his father Stanley (Ritter).

However, after drowning sorrows at his impossible situation, he gets drunk and winds up in bed with Eve's best friend Diane (Neuwirth).

So now he finds himself trying to hide his indiscretion from his step-mum while trying to keep his own feelings for her reined in.

Not quite as sharp and droll as it likes to think it is, Winick's romantic comedy nevertheless displays a waspish tone absent from standard Hollywood fare.

A top-notch cast helps, led by a wonderfully mischievous performance by Neuwirth (of Cheers and Frasier fame) as a devil-may-care sexual predator.

Newcomer Stanford does a winning young fogey from the same rich New York West Side background as Igby of Going Down infamy...but without the vicious world-weariness.

However, it's the script that lifts this above the norm: a desperate Oscar romantically appeals to his stepmum by suggesting: "We could meet...and go over my homework."

One the downside, Oscar's fantasy sequences don't really work and the editing isn't a slick as the dialogue.

But that's a minor gripe for a movie that manages the tricky balancing act of a healthy scepticism and an unpatronising glance at young love.

Tadpole is worth catching.

Tim Evans