If there were any doubts that writer-director-actor Edward Burns (The Brothers McMullen, She's the One) aspires to be Woody Allen, Sidewalks of New York dispels them. A pre-disaster romantic comedy that looks at the vagaries of contemporary relationships, the film is populated with the kind of (for the most part) appealing, wise-cracking, born-and-bred New Yawkers that would have been at home in any of the Woodman's New York-set classics.

The differences lie in the class striations; whereas Allen's characters were upper middle-class and prone to pretentiousness, Burns' are blue-collar and down-to-earth. That both directors' characters sound the same when talking about relationships just goes to show that love-and talk thereof-transcends mere distinctions of class.

Tommy (Burns) is a handsome former bridge-and-tunnel guy, a bit naïve, not a genius but smart enough to hold a job as a TV producer. Having been recently dumped, he meets the lovely Maria (Rosario Dawson), a divorced teacher, in a video store. They argue about who will get to take home the last copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's and a date is set up.

Meanwhile Maria's ex-husband Benjamin (the charming David Krumholtz), a boyish would-be musician and hotel doorman, still carries a torch for her while also showing interest in sprightly Ashley (Brittany Murphy), a young waitress who happens to be involved with Griffin, an older dentist (the oily Stanley Tucci). He, in turn, is married to the (justifiably) suspicious and deluded Annie (Heather Graham), a real estate agent who becomes interested in our Tommy while showing him apartments...

The roundelay approach is not new-Burns himself mentions Max Ophuls' 50s classic La Ronde in the press notes-but it comes off as an energetic and entertaining structure for a film about brash New Yorkers and their relationship woes.

Burns does cheat a bit, though, by having a fake documentary crew interview the principals about their love lives as a way of setting up some of the humour and smoothing over transitions from one scene to the next. This gimmick also allows him to forget about having to develop his characters whenever it's inconvenient-"I'll just have them tell the documentary crew what they think and feel." It gets a bit tired by the mid-way point, but it's not a fatal flaw.

The cast is uniformly fine, with major kudos going to Dawson and Krumholtz, both former child actors making the difficult transition to adult roles. She's fresh-faced and radiant as the cautious schoolteacher and he's all brazen energy and outer-borough charm. You can't help but love him when he takes prospective love Ashley to a record store, buys her vinyl copies of "Led Zeppelin I," the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" and Springsteen's "Greetings from Asbury Park," and then mentions that she has a "deficiency" if she doesn't love those albums.

Although some of the dialogue comes off as a bit trite, it's a lot of fun to spot the Woody-isms throughout (Benjamin: "I got beat up a lot when I was younger, so I spent a lot of time in my bathroom playing guitar and masturbating. Now that I am divorced, I pretty much do the same"). Indeed, Burns has "borrowed" a number of lines from both Manhattan and Annie Hall and in every case the borrowings work, both on their own and as homage to the master of New York relationship movies. If only Woody were still as in touch with the current relationship zeitgeist as Burns is.