Raw Footage (2005) User Reviews

Lots of Laughs--Fun Indie Film

[elbakan · 8/10 · 11 March 2005]

It starts out looking like a cross between "Meet the Parents/Fockers" and the "Blair Witch Project." Devon and Monica haven't committed yet after being together for 4 years in Arizona. And Monica is about to meet Devon's dysfunctional family in Los Angeles. The older generation acts like an exaggerated stereotypical New York Jewish family (not so with their diet), but Devon and his Brothers (or Cousins?) are atypical--rebellious in their own ways.

Devon is going to film the entire event. It sounds like a you have seen that one many times. But the laughs are plenty and the acting superb. The actors often appear to be ad-libbing--but that wasn't the case.

What you see is the "Raw Footage" that Devon and Monica film. Stay for the payoff. Fun Film--Drew Filus has a future in the film industry.

8/10

Raw footage as a metaphor for building a marriage out of a wedding

[jollro · 28 May 2015]

Raw Footage is built around an unintended family reunion that happens as a result of invitations to a ceremony for the renewal of a couple's wedding vows. The hand-held camera work is built into this self-referential movie which attempts to serve as an honest (raw?) look at singleness, divorce, love, romance, engagement, infidelity, and marriage in members of an extended family. The movie explores the question of whether there are reasons for hope in the face of multiple real-life examples of marriages gone sour. The film even implies that some bad marriages are bad because the couples get along best being part of a bad marriage! At the same time, there are reasons for believe in marriage and wanting it to work even when more than half of all marriages fail. At one point, the primary cameraman/character, wondering aloud why he should marry, asks his grandfather, who suggests that his grandson that he use different models of expectation than his own family members, that he give himself more credit ("for the sake of my great grandkids") than assuming his life is going to be like all the members of his family around him.