'Gossip' By Michael O'Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 21, 2000

Joshua Jackson (left) stars in "Gossip." (Warner Bros.)

The stylish film – about a trio of Manhattan college kids (James Marsden, Lena Headey and Norman Reedus) who start a vicious rumor about a schoolmate as a journalism class project – is terrific eye candy, all rain-streaked windows, hip Lower East Side lofts and high cheekbones. There's even a minuscule scrap of an idea to chew on: the notion that all news is mere hearsay anyway, at least as posited by journalism professor Eric Bogosian, whose provocative lectures precipitate the action. Soon the students "harmless" newsmongering – that chaste lovebirds Joshua Jackson and Kate Hudson were seen having sex at a party – comes back to bite its originators in the face with increasingly unpredictable (and life-threatening) consequences.

At full speed, "Gossip" plays like an old-fashioned whodunit, and the ending, despite being as preposterous as some of the stunts pulled on the old "Mission Impossible" TV series, is as perversely satisfying as the empty calories in a box of Milk Duds.

GOSSIP (R, 90 minutes) – Contains fighting, biting, shooting, obscenity and lots of talk about sex.