Self-indulgent piece of neo-modernist crap, people.
Buoyed by the relatively positive ratings and reviews for this film starring the amiable Ewan McGregor and the ever dashing Christopher Plummer, I was led to believe that I was going to watch a quirky, life-affirming tale about the notion of carpe diem in the lives of two proverbially lost people, Oliver and Anna. I was so WRONG. Do not set foot in the theater unless you relish feeling as though you've been completed bamboozled by the trailers for this film.
The premise seems interesting enough: three months after the death of his gay and ailing father, Oliver struggles to retain a hopeful and positive outlook on the potential for real human connection in Los Angeles. In flashbacks, we are supposed to see the tender and open relationship that Oliver and his father, Hal, strive to cultivate during the last few years of his life, interspersed with brief flashbacks of Oliver's parents attempting to make the best of their marriage of convenience. Shortly after the death of his father, Oliver attempts to start a meaningful relationship with Anna, a beautiful yet commitment-phobic French actress (is there any other kind?). The movie is mostly a kaleidescope of early-Eisenhower era Pop imagery pertaining to sexual identity and gender roles that set the premise behind the disenchanted marriage of Oliver's parents, who stayed together for decades out of social obligation and acceptance rather than attraction.
So, the old man is dying, the son is trying, and the gays are crying... but what is this movie really about, I ask you? This is just another disappointing attempt to create a socially conscious indie-flick set in Los Angeles, but without the dreary and discomforting presence of any part of town east of the Hollywood Hills. It was basically '500 Days of Summer' sans the effortless charm of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt or the killer soundtrack. Oliver and Anna's passivity and unblinking acquiescence to everything from Hal's protracted death from cancer to cathartic jaunts around the city to their near-undetectable breakup halfway through the film leaves the viewer completely cold -- we're not even really sure what happened. Did they have a fight? If so, what was it about? Was I eating popcorn when it happened? Sufficed to say, this movie is really light on the plot, heavy on the symbolic imagery. And I resent paying twelve bucks to experience what basically feels like a Rorschach test. I left the theater feeling completely cheated out of two hours and not a little frustrated with the lack of flow in the film. Read-throughs of the script must have been a breeze, since there were so many breathy protracted pauses and stilted narrative readings by McGregor to make up for the lack of actual plot. The French actress-girlfriend, played by Melanie Laurent, is so simultaneously chic and weird that you have a hard time taking your eyes off her, except to note how unbelievably contrived their first meeting and pursuant relationship is. They meet at a costume party, with him dressed like Freud and she looking like a sexually-confused schoolboy. Riiiiiight... could have been cute, I guess, if the actors had even a spark of chemistry between them. The French actress comes off as slightly bipolar; not sure if that was part of the script. Nothing about this movie seemed very deep or genuine, not the tears nor the laughter, what little of it there was.
Beware this film and all the hype portraying it as a feel-good drama. Let's call it what it was -- a derivative and highly uncomfortable attempt at expressing love between beautiful people on the big-screen. And - this is just a peeve of mine - next time, let's not be so eager to cast an Englishman, a Scot, and a Frenchwoman in a movie set in a city populated by Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans. I got the distinct feeling that Ewan McGregor was terrified to speak for fear that his Scottish accent would take over the scene.
Buoyed by the relatively positive ratings and reviews for this film starring the amiable Ewan McGregor and the ever dashing Christopher Plummer, I was led to believe that I was going to watch a quirky, life-affirming tale about the notion of carpe diem in the lives of two proverbially lost people, Oliver and Anna. I was so WRONG. Do not set foot in the theater unless you relish feeling as though you've been completed bamboozled by the trailers for this film.
The premise seems interesting enough: three months after the death of his gay and ailing father, Oliver struggles to retain a hopeful and positive outlook on the potential for real human connection in Los Angeles. In flashbacks, we are supposed to see the tender and open relationship that Oliver and his father, Hal, strive to cultivate during the last few years of his life, interspersed with brief flashbacks of Oliver's parents attempting to make the best of their marriage of convenience. Shortly after the death of his father, Oliver attempts to start a meaningful relationship with Anna, a beautiful yet commitment-phobic French actress (is there any other kind?). The movie is mostly a kaleidescope of early-Eisenhower era Pop imagery pertaining to sexual identity and gender roles that set the premise behind the disenchanted marriage of Oliver's parents, who stayed together for decades out of social obligation and acceptance rather than attraction.
So, the old man is dying, the son is trying, and the gays are crying... but what is this movie really about, I ask you? This is just another disappointing attempt to create a socially conscious indie-flick set in Los Angeles, but without the dreary and discomforting presence of any part of town east of the Hollywood Hills. It was basically '500 Days of Summer' sans the effortless charm of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt or the killer soundtrack. Oliver and Anna's passivity and unblinking acquiescence to everything from Hal's protracted death from cancer to cathartic jaunts around the city to their near-undetectable breakup halfway through the film leaves the viewer completely cold -- we're not even really sure what happened. Did they have a fight? If so, what was it about? Was I eating popcorn when it happened? Sufficed to say, this movie is really light on the plot, heavy on the symbolic imagery. And I resent paying twelve bucks to experience what basically feels like a Rorschach test. I left the theater feeling completely cheated out of two hours and not a little frustrated with the lack of flow in the film. Read-throughs of the script must have been a breeze, since there were so many breathy protracted pauses and stilted narrative readings by McGregor to make up for the lack of actual plot. The French actress-girlfriend, played by Melanie Laurent, is so simultaneously chic and weird that you have a hard time taking your eyes off her, except to note how unbelievably contrived their first meeting and pursuant relationship is. They meet at a costume party, with him dressed like Freud and she looking like a sexually-confused schoolboy. Riiiiiight... could have been cute, I guess, if the actors had even a spark of chemistry between them. The French actress comes off as slightly bipolar; not sure if that was part of the script. Nothing about this movie seemed very deep or genuine, not the tears nor the laughter, what little of it there was.
Beware this film and all the hype portraying it as a feel-good drama. Let's call it what it was -- a derivative and highly uncomfortable attempt at expressing love between beautiful people on the big-screen. And - this is just a peeve of mine - next time, let's not be so eager to cast an Englishman, a Scot, and a Frenchwoman in a movie set in a city populated by Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans. I got the distinct feeling that Ewan McGregor was terrified to speak for fear that his Scottish accent would take over the scene.