: Elephant Juice is a collaboration between the writer\creator and the director of This Life. Elephant Juice is sometimes described as a cinematic version of This Life, this is accurate. Is This Life one of the best shows of the 90s? ... erm quite possibly, but the standard was set incredibly high. You had The Simpsons hit their peak, Frasier and The Sopranos in the US. In the UK you could pull any sitcom name out of a hat and it would probably be great or at least worth watching: Coupling, Red Dwarf, reruns of peak Blackadder, Bottom, Drop The Dead Donkey. In terms of drama: The Lakes, Dennis Potter dramas like Jake's Progress and Karaoke, House Of Cards, Hillsborough, Queer As Folk. And it's still up there.
The film is a straight forward romantic drama (with a few bits of comedy) about 20 and 30-somethings living in London. Also like This Life they are seemingly middle class. If it wasn't for This Life +10, the 10 year follow-up to This Life, this could almost be a continuation of the characters. It even has Daniela Nardini from This Life playing a much less intense role, but also a lesser character. To be Honest all the characters are undeveloped apart from Kimberly Williams' barista single mother character. I can emphasise that it must have been a mammoth task writing so many characters and with a runtime of less than 90 minutes. There's a few shocks here and there, but nothing surprising in terms of plot. Honestly I'm not doubting the ability of those involved and there's some fine acting, but nobody really gets a chance to show off their acting chops, the usually brilliant Mark Strong appears on screen for all of five minutes for example.
The film doesn't quite feel cinematic apart from being shot on film (wasn't This Life shot on video?) and some licensed music including brilliant punk band Wire. The DVD has a nice print and is rated 18 in the UK, possibly due to cocaine use and a few sex scenes.
All in all it's a pretty good romantic drama, but it never excels itself and sort of has a TV movie feel to it.
The film is a straight forward romantic drama (with a few bits of comedy) about 20 and 30-somethings living in London. Also like This Life they are seemingly middle class. If it wasn't for This Life +10, the 10 year follow-up to This Life, this could almost be a continuation of the characters. It even has Daniela Nardini from This Life playing a much less intense role, but also a lesser character. To be Honest all the characters are undeveloped apart from Kimberly Williams' barista single mother character. I can emphasise that it must have been a mammoth task writing so many characters and with a runtime of less than 90 minutes. There's a few shocks here and there, but nothing surprising in terms of plot. Honestly I'm not doubting the ability of those involved and there's some fine acting, but nobody really gets a chance to show off their acting chops, the usually brilliant Mark Strong appears on screen for all of five minutes for example.
The film doesn't quite feel cinematic apart from being shot on film (wasn't This Life shot on video?) and some licensed music including brilliant punk band Wire. The DVD has a nice print and is rated 18 in the UK, possibly due to cocaine use and a few sex scenes.
All in all it's a pretty good romantic drama, but it never excels itself and sort of has a TV movie feel to it.