Film review: 'Unmade Beds'
The title "Unmade Beds" is a metaphor for the messy, harried lives of its four protagonists, but it could have been titled "Empty Beds" in reference to their loveless lives. An unsparing but empathetic docudrama about four New York singles who search for love in all the wrong ways, the film is an indie gem.
Part cultural ethnography, part soap opera, "Unmade Beds" is dicey and involving -- in fact, it's so personal in its documentation of its four main character's lives that we often feel voyeuristic, as if we're intruding too far into the personal domains of its four love-seeking characters. Shaped and distilled from more than 400 interviews selected from the New York singles scene, this insightful entertainment will likely cause mixed reactions among viewers: Some will find the characters' self-delusions and dating philosophies hilariously pathetic, while others will be saddened by their obviously self-destructive patterns of behavior.
There's nothing glamorous or saccharine-coated in this glimpse into the mundane world of these four very desperate people. No facile rays of hope obviate what is likely to become their eventual romantic fates: We see that they are all dating losers destined to flounder in their predictable, and unchangeable, downspins.
The four are Brenda (Brenda Monte), an overt exhibitionist who can't figure out why men always think of her in sexual terms; Michael Michael De Stefano), a bitter homophobe who blames his dating woes on outside circumstances; Aimee (Aimee Copp), a sloppy 225-pounder who downplays her physical unattractiveness while deluding herself with off-the-wall personal plans; and Mikey (Mikey Russo), a 54-year-old schlub whose self-image is so low he bores gullible women with tales of his screenwriting career (no sales, natch).
We're never sure if these four players were the real people or if they're actors. That says it all. You believe them as everyday, flawed human beings. Most touchingly, all four characters are not only unloved but have made themselves, through their own miscalculated exertions, unlovable.
Although it is often brutal and its probings into the inner lives of the four daters deeply invasive, "Unmade Beds" is resolutely fair-minded and ultimately empathetic. Clearly, it would be easy for a filmmaker to make fun of these types of characters with heightened cinematic aesthetics, but writer-director Nicholas Barker's kindly clinical depiction is scrupulously nonjudgmental and, as such, ever more revealing.
Technical contributions laudably serve the filmmaker's compassionate aesthetics; in particular, cinematographer William Rexer II's static, medium-shot framings are, by their nature, fair, nonshaded compositions. Praise also goes to the music supervisors (New State Entertainment, Rupert Lord, Tom Parkinson) for the jaunty, contrapuntal sounds, including some deliriously balmy '70s disco music, which counteracts the dreary and depressing aspects of these affecting and sobering human stories.
UNMADE BEDS
Chelsea Pictures
and Acetylene Entertainment
A Nicholas Barker film
Producer: Steve Wax
Screenwriter-director: Nicholas Barker
Chief researcher: John Delk
Director of photography: William Rexer II
Associate producer: Sam Bickley
Editor: Paul Binns
Sound: Brad Bergbom
Music supervisors: New State Entertainment, Rupert Lord, Tom Parkinson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Brenda: Brenda Monte
Michael: Michael De Stefano
Aimee: Aimee Copp
Mikey: Mikey Russo
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Part cultural ethnography, part soap opera, "Unmade Beds" is dicey and involving -- in fact, it's so personal in its documentation of its four main character's lives that we often feel voyeuristic, as if we're intruding too far into the personal domains of its four love-seeking characters. Shaped and distilled from more than 400 interviews selected from the New York singles scene, this insightful entertainment will likely cause mixed reactions among viewers: Some will find the characters' self-delusions and dating philosophies hilariously pathetic, while others will be saddened by their obviously self-destructive patterns of behavior.
There's nothing glamorous or saccharine-coated in this glimpse into the mundane world of these four very desperate people. No facile rays of hope obviate what is likely to become their eventual romantic fates: We see that they are all dating losers destined to flounder in their predictable, and unchangeable, downspins.
The four are Brenda (Brenda Monte), an overt exhibitionist who can't figure out why men always think of her in sexual terms; Michael Michael De Stefano), a bitter homophobe who blames his dating woes on outside circumstances; Aimee (Aimee Copp), a sloppy 225-pounder who downplays her physical unattractiveness while deluding herself with off-the-wall personal plans; and Mikey (Mikey Russo), a 54-year-old schlub whose self-image is so low he bores gullible women with tales of his screenwriting career (no sales, natch).
We're never sure if these four players were the real people or if they're actors. That says it all. You believe them as everyday, flawed human beings. Most touchingly, all four characters are not only unloved but have made themselves, through their own miscalculated exertions, unlovable.
Although it is often brutal and its probings into the inner lives of the four daters deeply invasive, "Unmade Beds" is resolutely fair-minded and ultimately empathetic. Clearly, it would be easy for a filmmaker to make fun of these types of characters with heightened cinematic aesthetics, but writer-director Nicholas Barker's kindly clinical depiction is scrupulously nonjudgmental and, as such, ever more revealing.
Technical contributions laudably serve the filmmaker's compassionate aesthetics; in particular, cinematographer William Rexer II's static, medium-shot framings are, by their nature, fair, nonshaded compositions. Praise also goes to the music supervisors (New State Entertainment, Rupert Lord, Tom Parkinson) for the jaunty, contrapuntal sounds, including some deliriously balmy '70s disco music, which counteracts the dreary and depressing aspects of these affecting and sobering human stories.
UNMADE BEDS
Chelsea Pictures
and Acetylene Entertainment
A Nicholas Barker film
Producer: Steve Wax
Screenwriter-director: Nicholas Barker
Chief researcher: John Delk
Director of photography: William Rexer II
Associate producer: Sam Bickley
Editor: Paul Binns
Sound: Brad Bergbom
Music supervisors: New State Entertainment, Rupert Lord, Tom Parkinson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Brenda: Brenda Monte
Michael: Michael De Stefano
Aimee: Aimee Copp
Mikey: Mikey Russo
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/26/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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