Our Burden Is Light (2005)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Denise Coates

Writer:

Denise Coates (writer)

Release Date:

January 2005 (USA)

Tagline:

Sometimes destiny has a way of finding us

Plot:

Karen Moone is a needy woman with an unfaithful boyfriend that is completely miserable after the suicide of her mother...

Cast

Karl Alvarez	...	Lembo
Jessica Ballard	...	Marnie Lowell
Robert Bisetti	...	Boss
Abe Brenann	...	Tim Hunter
Abe Brennan	...	Tim Hunter
Sam Ceridon	...	Detective
Cathy Coan	...	Marci
Daniel Coates	...	Pero
Denise Coates	...	Karen Moone
Timothy Englert	...	Bartender
Jason Livermore	...	Drunken Pete
Brian McCulley	...	Bill
Nate Mendel	...	Devin
Nato Morris	...	Douglas Moone
John Pendergrast	...	Suit #2
Marti Phillips	...	Sarah Elliott
Jack Rooney	...	Sam Heartman
Luke Schmaltz	...	Mugger
Chad Schnackel	...	Suit #1
William Stobo	...	Guitar Prophet
Carol Van Natta	...	Maye Moone
Nathan Webb	...	Kyle
Nicole Wicks	...	Lesley

Runtime:

USA:89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Company:

Lightburden Productions

Imagine if Ed Wood Jr. directed "Reality Bites" and hired obnoxious homeless people for the parts.

Okay... here is the breakdown of this film. Two people (a man and a woman) who don't know each other have a chance encounter on the street. Then one of them get mugged and when the other tries to stop the mugger then he gets beaten up too. The two strangers wake up with amnesia and somehow end up with the "Looney Tunes" notion that they are husband and wife. Now... how do two people get 'double amnesia?' Amnesia, like hypnotism, is a bad plot device used when the film is lacking a plot so badly that cliché is the only saving grace out. Denise Coates, who claims she directed this film, obviously handed it off to the DP (you know you are in trouble at that point!). The series of loosely collected scenes (starring Coates) is a series of 90s twenty-something dorks and hippies musing about philosophy and crap. It's like the bad cuts that ending up on the cutting room floor from "Waking Life" were picked up from the garbage and put into this film. The acting is horrible, the story (if there is one) makes NO SENSE and whenever something surreal happens (like when a mysterious stranger pops in like some angel) is plays like filler for a film that has no meaning. Plus, the art direction and set design is so ridiculous and so sophomore that is seems like a two year old kid was hired for the task. This is like a bad student film from a rich kid who wants to us to love simply because she made it. This is a bad throwback to 90s Ethan Hawke 'pseudo-philosophy' Films. And it sucks! Anything more said about this waste of celluloid is a waste. Nuff' said.

Alan Kinney