You can mix comedy with a serious story if you are an excellent writer/director but I think Tim Robbins has failed in both areas. This film is a total mess which is a shame because Tim Robbins has to be better than this. He probably wanted all his favorite people stuck in one film and it didn't work.
Many of the characters are acting like prima-donnas not taking their roles seriously and, as described in the title, as though they're drunk acting at some trivial theme party. This is supposed to be at the height of the depression and only Emily Watson and John Tuturro seem to get this.
Paul Giamatti's character is so disastrous it will forever be a stain on his career. Every appearance of Cary Elwes should be extracted from the film and those clips of film should be immediately destroyed. Cherry Jones takes her role seriously but also has to play along with some screwball antics that should have been cut from the film. Her acting is like a bandaid on an otherwise terrible scene making it somewhat bearable. Bill Murray must be thinking, "I'll do what I can, It's a paycheck."
The climax of the film is a twisted montage of different scenes cut into each other for no sensible reason. To make matters worse there's a whole scene of a mock funeral for a puppet that is utterly senseless. So maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor? Or maybe we in the audience are supposed to feel this is possibly some highbrow humor over our heads. Should we pretend like it's funny so others will perceive us as smart enough to "get it"? No... It's just very poor film-making.
It's the kind of thing that gives neoconservatives a foundation to stand on when referring to liberals as pretentious and aloof in an attempt to denigrate liberal thinking in mainstream America.
Many of the characters are acting like prima-donnas not taking their roles seriously and, as described in the title, as though they're drunk acting at some trivial theme party. This is supposed to be at the height of the depression and only Emily Watson and John Tuturro seem to get this.
Paul Giamatti's character is so disastrous it will forever be a stain on his career. Every appearance of Cary Elwes should be extracted from the film and those clips of film should be immediately destroyed. Cherry Jones takes her role seriously but also has to play along with some screwball antics that should have been cut from the film. Her acting is like a bandaid on an otherwise terrible scene making it somewhat bearable. Bill Murray must be thinking, "I'll do what I can, It's a paycheck."
The climax of the film is a twisted montage of different scenes cut into each other for no sensible reason. To make matters worse there's a whole scene of a mock funeral for a puppet that is utterly senseless. So maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor? Or maybe we in the audience are supposed to feel this is possibly some highbrow humor over our heads. Should we pretend like it's funny so others will perceive us as smart enough to "get it"? No... It's just very poor film-making.
It's the kind of thing that gives neoconservatives a foundation to stand on when referring to liberals as pretentious and aloof in an attempt to denigrate liberal thinking in mainstream America.