Hurlyburly is hands down the worst film I've ever had the misfortune of seeing. For starters, it doesn't have a single sympathetic character, let alone one that the audience can even bear to share two hours with. It's slow paced (that can be a good thing - just look at Shadowlands, but it isn't here), boring beyond belief, and just plain annoying. Watching a few characters we despise in the first place self destruct is not my idea of a good time. It even got to the point where I just turned it off, after an hour or so. I'm surprised that I even got that far.
It's labelled as a comedy, but garners only a single laugh, in the first five minutes. Sadly, the film boasts an outstanding cast (sadly because I wish that they had gotten together on a better project). Though I'm not a fan of Sean Penn, Chazz Palminteri or Garry Shandling, I respect the work they've done in the past, and there's no doubt in my mind that they are good actors. Both Anna Paquin and Meg Ryan, two of the best actors in their respective generations, are underused, but again, neither are playing characters you'd want to see overused. Kevin Spacey is, besides Haley Joel Osment, my favorite actor (yet, ironically, Pay it Forward, which featured both of them, was a beyond mediocre film), but it seems that he picks films that really aren't very good, or have box office prospects, either of which necessary. He was in Swimming With Sharks, one of my favorite films of all time, American Beauty, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and a few other great films. That is the Kevin Spacey who is one of my favorite actors. But that same actor was also in the substandard Big Kahuna (another picture without any characters with redeeming qualities), Doomsday Gun, and now this.
The sets are bland, the writing uninspired, the story nonexistent and the actors wasted (in more ways than one). Do yourself a favor and give this a hearty pass. Actually, what I'm trying to get at is: AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS.
0/10 (yeah, that's right, it's a first for me)
