Milk and Honey (2003)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Joe Maggio

Writer:

Joe Maggio (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Over one night in New York City, lives of disparate strangers intersect by fate and circumstance.

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Clint Jordan	...	Rick Johnson
Kirsten Russell	...	Joyce Johnson
Dudley Findlay Jr.	...	Moses Jackson
Anthony Howard	...	Tony
Greg Amici	...	Dudley
Eleanor Hutchins
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jennie Epland
Richard Gnolfo	...	Dinner Party Guest
Lizabeth Sant'Angelo	...	Maud
Eric Wippo	...	Troy

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Company:

Concrete Films

A film more dis-jointed than the characters.

I saw this movie at the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York City. The film is shot in the Big Apple and portrays a wealthy couple, Rick & Joyce, in their mid-40's who are going through what might seem to be obligatory marriage difficulties.

However, there is one wrinkle. They are both certifiably insane. Rick is shown as someone who in the backstory has undergone mental health treatment and even institutionalization, and Joyce seems to thrive on nurturing his dysfunction.

The opening scene in the movie is that the couple is hosting a party at their lavish apartment. (Anyone who lives in that kind of apartment in NYC, is filthy rich). Anyway, the party is supposed to be Rick's "comeback" event, as his co-workers and boss are there wishing him a speedy recovery and telling him to take all the time he needs. However, it is clear that Rick is still extremely disturbed and has gone off his meds as he goes into a violent rant about the tie that Joyce bought, and begins to ramble about re-proposing to his wife in front of his guests. The scene of the party guests looking incredibly uncomfortable as Rick makes a jackass of himself, and wishing they were someplace else, before bolting the party, is absolutely precious. I felt just as uncomfortable as the party guests, secure in my theater seat.

Anyway, Rick then bolts the house and goes on a psychotic binge all night, accosting his girlfriend, his shrink, and a complete stranger named Moses, who was the only compelling character. On another completely unrealistic scene, Rick barges into his psychiatrists home at 1:00 a.m. yelling at him that he is a bad shrink. Considering how violent and drunk he was, the fact that the shrink did not call the authorities and have him taken into custody for his own safety give ample evidence that he is a bad shrink. Meanwhile, Joyce also goes off on a psychotic binge in the streets of New York, which also made me equally uncomfortable.

If the movie was about two crazy people in the streets of New York, then I would buy into it. However, the director was present at the film and engaged in question and answers with the audience. He claimed that the movie was supposed to be about how this couple work out their marriage difficulties, and not about their mental diseases. That's not the movie he made.

It's too bad, because had the filmaker made the characters a little less insane, and still go through the same experiences, then the movie would have been quite compelling. Unfortunately, the characters were so unbelievably crazy, that it just devolved into a freakshow. By the end of the film, I simply didn't care about the characters.

On a technical note, the movie was shot on digital video and presented on Windows Media Player, by a computer. The effect was that the movie was too out of focus. They need to work on that technology.