Movies : November 2005

28 November 2005

Just Friends

This made-for-export (foreign financing) comedy romance starts on a false note and can’t quite recover. As friendly a cheerleader as Jamie (Amy Smart) might be, it’s unlikely she would loan her senior year high school yearbook to anyone, even her favorite fellow cheerleader Chris (Ryan Reynolds) in the Friend Zone. A decade later, Chris has shed the pounds and the timidity and turned into a glad-handling womanizing record producer who this Christmas is saddled with signing up Samantha James (Anna Faris) for her next album. The movie gets most of its energy from the ferocious way Faris throws herself into the role of the blonde talentless vocalist. That, and the abundant injury humor which ensues from an unplanned landing in the New Jersey town of Chris’s childhood where he reunites with what’s left of his family (Julie Hagerty as the mom), with Jamie, and with a rival for her affection (Chris Klein) who’s lost his acne. But Chris treats his younger brother so poorly it’s clear that the bad boy routine is no act, so any romantic interest which might develop between him and Jamie is not especially welcome. Clunkily set in the week around Christmas, the characters have no life outside each scene. Did I mention injury humor? Plenty of it, but surely Smart could do better.

93 minutes.

21 November 2005

Derailed

City Paper is usually careful to note when a movie deliberately sets itself up at the beginning but chose not to do so in reviewing this weak attempt at a thriller (pay attention to the book report the daughter prepares at breakfast). On the other hand, wanton inattention is another regular feature of the reviews: there is a difference between the El in Chicago and the Metra (Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation) trains our two protagonists ride into work each day. (A character’s utterance of Red Line may have overwhelmed the views of motive power and rolling stock intended to set the movie in Chicago despite its filming in London.) Clive Owen plays a creative in advertising struggling with the finances for a Type I diabetic daughter (Addison Timlin) with a wife (Melissa George) who, for better or worse, comes off more as an older sister (George is older than she looks but still more than a decade younger than Owen). One morning on the train in he finds himself short of cash for the ticket and a mysterious stranger with black hose and four-inch heels (Jennifer Aniston) pays his way. It’s entirely normal that he would want to talk to her, and so he does… which leads to drinks, and dinner, and—dare they think it—a hotel. But we’ve already seen the name of Vincent Cassel in the credits, and nothing, but nothing good can come of that. Violent and bloody, manipulative and scheming, callous and mystifying, the plot unwinds in its hopeless task of de-wussyifying Owen’s character. The smirk at the end is the capper on a cynical enterprise. My presentation set the ratio too narrowly, lopping off the top and projecting at about 2.65.

107 minutes.

20 November 2005

Prime

A romantic comedy steeped in the possibilities for humor in the world of a Jewish therapist (Meryl Streep) and her Upper West Side ways when her just-divorced shiksa patient (Uma Thurman) quickly bounces back with a new beau and the two come to realize that it’s the therapist’s son. The plot’s crux is the pain of a mother just knowing her son is making the wrong decision and the conflict that creates for a therapist’s duties to her patient—and that part is quite funny—but the romance is rushed and the denouement, while mature, will disappoint some. The performances of the leads are assured. Qualifies for the Made in NY seal. My presentation was poorly framed and microphones were routinely visible and the edge of the walls forming the set of the therapist’s office could be seen once.

103 minutes.

18 November 2005

The Squid and the Whale

The painfully close look at the break-up of a literary couple, his career coasting downwards, hers looking up, and its effects on the two sons is set in the Brooklyn of 1986 and filmed in a documentarian’s style. Jeff Daniels drives a Peugeot 504 diesel as the novelist who’s tempted by the students in the writing class he teaches and whose strong opinions on what’s good and worthwhile in life have made on impression on the older son. Laura Linney drives a Volvo 200-series as the essayist who managed to keep her affair quiet. Where the younger son gets his inappropriate sexual conduct at school is not manifest. Actors who know their stuff, with Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline as the sons in this autobiographically inspired drama, and even Anna Paquin is hot as one of those potentially randy students.

81 minutes.

12 November 2005

Pride & Prejudice

A giddy, vigorous, gossipy, energetic, rambunctious take on Jane Austen must in its running time breeze through much of what devotees of the novel and its previous incarnations as miniseries took seriously but gets by on the dark lashes and flitting expressions upon the lips of its star Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett. Lizzie is one of five daughters in the household and the intricacies of British estate law and society in general doom them all to impoverishment if they do not marry, and marry well. The arrival of neighbors with substantial incomes leads to maneuvers at the numerous balls and elsewhere. How could I resist once I saw Jena Malone (as Lydia) was in the cast?

130 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 29-Nov-2005