this movie plays a decent straight man to adaptation's more frantic meditations on this phenomena love. there are those that walk through life and prefer ugly truths and those that prefer poetic lies, generally those that claim to live for the former reveal themselves as the latter. this movie starts out in the territory occupied by the former. the idea that the crazy little thing called love is nothing more than the delusion applied to a vast web of chemical reactions and pre-programmed responses. that love does not exist but is completely fictional in our mind to explain the power of said chemicals. note that i do not use the word "merely" when referring to chemicals, as i do not underestimate the power of them. as the movie and story unravel it drifts into the territory of denial. the beautiful lie as bukowski put it. it's alright though. the fact that the movie has the courage to explore the concepts in the first place is enough to make me like it.
so what have i said about the movie? well acted, adequately filmed, and all the usual jazz that you should of course expect from professionals filming a movie. what really takes this movie off is that the characters seem really fleshed out from their first moments on the screen. the writers don't seem inclined to want to insult their audience. these could be people you know, or once knew. even some of the more minor characters you feel could be fueling their own movie. it might be interesting to have a set of movies centered on other characters and have the thrust of this movie as viewed through their background narrative. the actors themselves manage to capture their characters and embody them with subtlety. these are intelligent characters the likes of which are rarely found in romantic comedies. there is both romance and comedy in this. the comedy being a more off the cuff indirect manner that is less written and more observed by the simple act of acting as real people tend to act. as for the romance it seems messy, intellectualized, complex, difficult, and moving. all in all it seems believable excellent job 9 out of 10
so what have i said about the movie? well acted, adequately filmed, and all the usual jazz that you should of course expect from professionals filming a movie. what really takes this movie off is that the characters seem really fleshed out from their first moments on the screen. the writers don't seem inclined to want to insult their audience. these could be people you know, or once knew. even some of the more minor characters you feel could be fueling their own movie. it might be interesting to have a set of movies centered on other characters and have the thrust of this movie as viewed through their background narrative. the actors themselves manage to capture their characters and embody them with subtlety. these are intelligent characters the likes of which are rarely found in romantic comedies. there is both romance and comedy in this. the comedy being a more off the cuff indirect manner that is less written and more observed by the simple act of acting as real people tend to act. as for the romance it seems messy, intellectualized, complex, difficult, and moving. all in all it seems believable excellent job 9 out of 10