This is one of those crappy soap opera/T.V. movies from a television director, Brad Silberling, who hasn't quite figured out what a feature film is -- or should be. It's distinguished by trivial, cliched, daytime serial dialogue, a nauseatingly trite, maudlin story, unlikable, unattractive lead characters, an inconclusive, unsatisfying ending and a score lifted directly from "American Beauty."
It also features constantly ringing rotary phones that no one decides to answer for at least four to five rings (is this to tell us the story is set in another decade, and if so, why?) But worst of all, the film suffers from "name-calling syndrome," that is, characters who know each other constantly and annoyingly use each other's names in normal conversation --just to make sure we don't ever confuse any of this with reality. Here's an example:
Ben: "So, what do you think, Joe?" Joe: "I'm not really sure, Ben."
That type of crap. Straight out of a soap opera, or a stage play. Just for a little variety, sometimes the names come at the beginning of a line, like this:
JoJo: "Oh, Ben, stop acting like that!" Ben: "Jo, what are you talking about?"
Maybe the idea is to keep reminding the audience who's who, to make sure we never forget their names (God knows we wouldn't be able to follow the story without that crucial information). But all this technique really does, of course, is keep telling the audience, over and over again, "it's only a movie, it isn't real."
Because in real life, people who know each other almost never use each other's names -- not unless they're calling out to get each other's attention, or want to kill each other, or both.
This film doesn't rival the top offenders in this category, thank God -- the worst being "American Buffalo" (which made me run screaming from the theater after about fifteen minutes) and "Wonder Boys," both of which achieved a false, theatrical quality strictly because of this annoying tendency. "American Buffalo" is based on a play, so one can see how it suffered from not being properly adapted, but "Wonder Boys," taken from a novel, has absolutely no excuse.
Neither does this p*** poor film. Sorry, Brad. Maybe it's time to go back to T.V.
It also features constantly ringing rotary phones that no one decides to answer for at least four to five rings (is this to tell us the story is set in another decade, and if so, why?) But worst of all, the film suffers from "name-calling syndrome," that is, characters who know each other constantly and annoyingly use each other's names in normal conversation --just to make sure we don't ever confuse any of this with reality. Here's an example:
Ben: "So, what do you think, Joe?" Joe: "I'm not really sure, Ben."
That type of crap. Straight out of a soap opera, or a stage play. Just for a little variety, sometimes the names come at the beginning of a line, like this:
JoJo: "Oh, Ben, stop acting like that!" Ben: "Jo, what are you talking about?"
Maybe the idea is to keep reminding the audience who's who, to make sure we never forget their names (God knows we wouldn't be able to follow the story without that crucial information). But all this technique really does, of course, is keep telling the audience, over and over again, "it's only a movie, it isn't real."
Because in real life, people who know each other almost never use each other's names -- not unless they're calling out to get each other's attention, or want to kill each other, or both.
This film doesn't rival the top offenders in this category, thank God -- the worst being "American Buffalo" (which made me run screaming from the theater after about fifteen minutes) and "Wonder Boys," both of which achieved a false, theatrical quality strictly because of this annoying tendency. "American Buffalo" is based on a play, so one can see how it suffered from not being properly adapted, but "Wonder Boys," taken from a novel, has absolutely no excuse.
Neither does this p*** poor film. Sorry, Brad. Maybe it's time to go back to T.V.