It’s hard to believe that in less than a decade British director Mick Jackson went from traumatising a generation with his outstanding nuclear war drama Threads (1984) to this charmingly offbeat romantic comedy fantasy, a quirky love letter to Los Angeles in which the city often seems to be playing a key supporting role. It’s often been said that sometimes it takes an outsider’s eye to tease out the stranger aspects of a city, or a whole country even, and although the script for L.A. Story was written by its star and long-time L.A. resident, Steve Martin, much of the film’s appeal does indeed come from a Brit abroad, looking at the eccentricities of the city with a reasonably fresh eye.

The title sequence alone as a lovely, kaleidoscopic survey of some of the city’s more outré sights and citizens, lifting the lid on a City of Angels we rarely ever see on screen. The story proper revolves around jaded L.A. television weatherman Harris K. Telemacher (Martin) who is in an unfulfilling relationship with social-climbing girlfriend Trudi (Marilu Henner) and who hates his job which requires him to act like a buffoon and is far beneath his academic talents – he holds a Ph.D. in arts and humanities. He’s tired of the crushing superficiality of early 90s Los Angeles life, the dreary parties, his pretentious friend group and the ridiculous unwritten rules of city life (there’s a bizarre but very funny scene involving gun etiquette during a freeway shootout). His only outlet seems to be roller-skating through art galleries with his friend Ariel (Susan Forristal) who films his odd attempts at performance art. Then, at one particularly fatuous luncheon, he meets and falls for another eccentric, British journalist Sara (Victoria Tennant, married to Martin at the time). Already seeing both Trudi (who is cheating on him with his agent) and the ditzy shop assistant Sandy (Sarah Jessica Parker) – apparently she prefers it spelled SanDeE* – and with Sara close to reuniting with her estranged husband Roland (Richard E. Grant), Harris gets help and support from one of the city’s freeway traffic condition sign who offers him advice on how to sort out his life…

It’s a film that really couldn’t have been any more different from the horrifying Threads if it tried (Jackson had spent the intervening years on things like the British near-future political thriller A Very British Coup (1988) and his feature film debut Chattahoochee (1989) among other things). Frothy, occasionally surreal and always oozing a simple, easy charm, it’s one of Martin’s best films, beautifully written with nicely observed characters (one suspects that Martin had met every one of these kooks many times before in real life) and an air of strangeness hat never lets up to the very end. He captures the many absurdities of early 90s Los Angeles (still hung over from the 80s yuppie years) with a faint weariness but always lovingly, never sneering, and Jackson directs it all in a slightly bemused manner.

Into this world of wilful eccentrics comes a genuine free-spirit, Sarah, another outsider who becomes a vehicle for further exploring the peculiarities of Harris’ highly stylised world. Unfortunately, Tennant never really cuts it as the love interest, being just a bit too cold and aloof, and despite her being married to Martin at the time, there’s remarkably little “heat” generated by their relationship, very little chemistry. It’s the film’s only misstep but given that the relationship is central to the film, it’s a big one.

But there’s so much else going here that one can easily enough overlook it. The plethora of in-jokes (there’s a brief burst of the poem Pointy Birds from The Man With Two Brains (1983)) and sight gags for example, or the many celebrity cameos (Chevy Chase, Woody Harrelson, Paula Abdul, Martin Lawrence and Rick Moranis all turn up, uncredited, in small roles) should keep you distracted from the weak love story. It all has a Woody Allen-ish feel to it, particularly in its potentially most contentious moments, in which Harris forms a relationship with a much younger woman (Manhattan (1979) is the obvious touch point here). Parker is fun as the ditzy and irritating (deliberately so) SanDeE* but the supporting cast acting honours are taken by Susan Forristal as Ariel, Harris’ best friend and their roller-skating antics are a joy. In fact, Ariel seems to be a far better fit for Harris as a romantic partner than anyone else and it’s surprising that he never acknowledges that.

The fantasy elements are lovely. The sentient road sign, possibly an extension of the city itself, enjoys bagpipe music and Manfred Mann’s 1964 hit Do Wah Diddy Diddy, and dispenses helpful advice not just to Harris but to other lost souls – an early scene has Harris driving past a stranded motorist staring intently at the sign, presumably receiving his own life-changing tips. It all adds to the feeling that we’re in an alternate universe version of L.A., one where William Shakespeare is buried and just about anything can happen (“romance does exist deep in the heart of L.A.” muses Harris at the end.)

L.A. Story was a box office and critical hit for Martin and Jackson. Some of us might argue that it was Martin’s last fully realised film – he’s made plenty since, some of them good enough, but none quite as good as this. For Jackson, it was the door to blockbusters like The Bodyguard (1992) and Volcano (1997). It’s not a film for cynics, but allow yourself to be caught up in its wild silliness and it’s a huge amount of fun, a heartfelt paean to a city already weird enough in real life but transformed into a truly magical place in this marvellous film.