plex Review of Puccini for Beginners

Puccini for Beginners (2006)

Huh? Only very mild spoiler included.

[3/10 · 17 December 2008]

Don't get the point of this film or if it even makes any point. It just sort of plods around without any foundation or pace. None of the characters are likable, they're all dishonest with themselves and each other, and selfish. You get the idea they will end up alone and you don't care. Poorly acted with very limited emotional reactions covered by a veneer of self- importance, self-cool, self- righteousness, and displaced awe we are supposed to feel because they are bisexual(maybe) AND New Yorkers, AND educated. The film is all too self aware of itself and the writer/director self-gratifies with small genitalia. I watched this film because I have seen most of the players in other things I liked, ironically they were better scripted and directed in TV shows. The film's climax is that it has no climax, you see it coming a mile away and has all the energy and appeal of a televised senior golf tournament. Its billed as a comedy and a romance but neither of those genres were evident to me. How and why sushi chefs would know or care about the intimate details of customers they have no apparent connection with is a complete mystery to me. How & why the character are always bumping into each other, or espying the other in NYC was lamely explained using some old Freud comment about peripheral awareness. Watch only if you like selected players and you are amused by the cliché'd script penned by a lesbian who completely negates men and understands even less about the man-woman dynamic.