'The Mindy Project' review: Looking for love

A romantic at heart, she can recite dialogue from most Nora Ephron movies but has to get over the notion that life's a movie with a happy ending. She gets harsh reality checks at work from Danny Castellano (East Northport's Chris Messina), who teases her like a big brother, and gets passes from "bad boy" Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks), who makes passes at every woman, so those are hardly special.

Does true love exist? She goes on a blind date (with Ed Helms, Kaling's former castmate from "The Office" who's guesting tonight) to find out, but work intrudes once again. Sigh.

But "The Mindy Project" is the lesser sum of all those parts, or at least the pilot is. Urgently -- or too obviously -- channeling Meg Ryan, Mindy Lahiri (and Mindy Kaling) tries too hard to be cute, good-hearted, sarcastic and put-upon. It's often more clever than actually funny.

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