DEFINITELY CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!! The acting in this film is EVERYTHING. The story--hey, we've seen (read Every Female equals) blue collar Jersey chics slobber over (read Every Male equals) callous, insensitive, brutish, infantile, chauvinistic males before. But that's just the point. There are no greys in this movie. Characterizations are either black or white. Men are brutes--every single last one of them. Even the character that Ben Gazzara plays never once asks the Gena Rowland's character if she WANTS to move to Florida. He just falls in love with her and wants to move to buy a trailer in Jacksonville. And since every trailer in Jacksonville not only has to have push-outs and a separate stall shower but a wife, it seems as if this is only real reason Gazzara's character wants to form an attachment or have some kind of a relationship with Rowland's character.
Justin Chambers' character falls right in line with all the other males in the script. If it's a male in this movie, it's knuckles are dragging on the ground. Women are to be ignored, but when they push themselves on you, you give in but get them to do what you want them to do. In his case, perform fellatio. It's amazing, however, that he doesn't show up for the food Uma Thurman's character prepares for him a few nights thereafter. After all, what more is there in life than beer, pool, fellatio, and filet mignon (all of which are prepared or placed before you with very little effort). He doesn't show up, however. Obviously this brute has some smarts, knowing that this Jersey chic is really bonkers.
But women fare no better in this black or white world. Juliette Lewis has had a bad marriage and a kid from hell. But all she wants is to jump into bed with the next penis that walks down the street. She wants the bartender so bad at their local watering hole. But he seems to be no better than the other apes swinging through the streets of Bayonne (or whatever North Jersey city the story takes place in: locale is unimportant here--all cities in North Jersey are the same, all connected by the Pulaski Skyway).
Uma Thurman's character is pathetically miserable. But it's hard to imagine that a woman can be so desperate to let men walk so deliberately, continually and almost self-inflictingly all over her. She creates such a pitiful portrait, but then you sit back and say: HEY! Wake UP!! Which of course she can't.
Because the characters are written so black and white, it's hard to know what to do with this film. It's hard to like a film that makes male viewers with any sensibility angry at the portayals of ALL males as pigs, and makes female viewers with any sensibility angry at the portayals of ALL females as desperate harridans.
The only female who is portrayed with any ounce of sympathy (and I don't mean the viewer pities her) is Gena Rowlands character. She's a beaten individual, quite honestly past her prime, but realistic in her view of herself and the world. She is the only person who takes life cautiously. When Ben Gazzara's character asks her to move to Florida, while it's obvious she's interested, she tells him "I'll have to look up Jacksonville on the internet." Way to go!! Finally, an ounce of sense, an individual thinking with his or her head, and not simply with one's loins. For not only the men are guilty of loin-logic in this flick. Ben Gazzara's character seems too old to think that way. He's working on a comfortable retirement, and in need of a wife to complete the image, that's all. But everyone else is desperate to mate.
On a higher level, in any slice-of-life drama, there are bound to be liberties taken with portrayals and types of characters selected to tell the story. So the thing to do with this film, it seems, is to put everything in the background and watch the actors portray some really sad people in a very sad environment.
Justin Chambers' character falls right in line with all the other males in the script. If it's a male in this movie, it's knuckles are dragging on the ground. Women are to be ignored, but when they push themselves on you, you give in but get them to do what you want them to do. In his case, perform fellatio. It's amazing, however, that he doesn't show up for the food Uma Thurman's character prepares for him a few nights thereafter. After all, what more is there in life than beer, pool, fellatio, and filet mignon (all of which are prepared or placed before you with very little effort). He doesn't show up, however. Obviously this brute has some smarts, knowing that this Jersey chic is really bonkers.
But women fare no better in this black or white world. Juliette Lewis has had a bad marriage and a kid from hell. But all she wants is to jump into bed with the next penis that walks down the street. She wants the bartender so bad at their local watering hole. But he seems to be no better than the other apes swinging through the streets of Bayonne (or whatever North Jersey city the story takes place in: locale is unimportant here--all cities in North Jersey are the same, all connected by the Pulaski Skyway).
Uma Thurman's character is pathetically miserable. But it's hard to imagine that a woman can be so desperate to let men walk so deliberately, continually and almost self-inflictingly all over her. She creates such a pitiful portrait, but then you sit back and say: HEY! Wake UP!! Which of course she can't.
Because the characters are written so black and white, it's hard to know what to do with this film. It's hard to like a film that makes male viewers with any sensibility angry at the portayals of ALL males as pigs, and makes female viewers with any sensibility angry at the portayals of ALL females as desperate harridans.
The only female who is portrayed with any ounce of sympathy (and I don't mean the viewer pities her) is Gena Rowlands character. She's a beaten individual, quite honestly past her prime, but realistic in her view of herself and the world. She is the only person who takes life cautiously. When Ben Gazzara's character asks her to move to Florida, while it's obvious she's interested, she tells him "I'll have to look up Jacksonville on the internet." Way to go!! Finally, an ounce of sense, an individual thinking with his or her head, and not simply with one's loins. For not only the men are guilty of loin-logic in this flick. Ben Gazzara's character seems too old to think that way. He's working on a comfortable retirement, and in need of a wife to complete the image, that's all. But everyone else is desperate to mate.
On a higher level, in any slice-of-life drama, there are bound to be liberties taken with portrayals and types of characters selected to tell the story. So the thing to do with this film, it seems, is to put everything in the background and watch the actors portray some really sad people in a very sad environment.