This is a movie with a story that, while far from being a cliché, contains elements we've seen before--the most familiar of which is the ostensibly happy suburban couple whose lives are upended by the intrusion of a stranger who causes the couple to realize that they aren't quite as happy as they thought. In the formula, one of the partners almost always welcomes the interloper, while the other is immediately suspicious. That's the case, here.
This film is billed as a comedy, and it has several quite funny moments, but nothing that's going to have you rolling in the aisles. It's consistently amusing. The performances are uniformly excellent, the characters are well drawn, it's got a really strong soundtrack, it's well shot, and seems to have been done on a tight budget--a budget kept low thanks, in part, to some seamless and smart visual effects.
The movie has an unusual tone--set right from the start by the animated credit sequence. The odd and arresting soundtrack also contributes to the strange tone. I doubt it will get much of a regular release (I saw it at the Vancouver Film Festival) because of its determinedly indy tone.
SPOILER IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH: The script has some problems. The situation is just never pushed far enough, and the sense of jeopardy to the protagonists--the distressed couple--never becomes as dire as it should be. I was never really rooting for them, never feared for their marriage. Not because I didn't believe it could disintegrate, but because I just didn't care that much whether it failed or not. And the resolution is very weak. In the end, it seems the Parker Posey character returns to her husband not because she realizes that her marriage is worth saving, but because the architect turns out to be a fraud. Whatever happened to her complaint that her husband was stifling her? Of course, if that was the writer's intent--to point out that the couple's marriage held together only because of a lack of better alternatives--then I suppose the point is made. But it doesn't exactly leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling that a comedy is supposed to.
This film is billed as a comedy, and it has several quite funny moments, but nothing that's going to have you rolling in the aisles. It's consistently amusing. The performances are uniformly excellent, the characters are well drawn, it's got a really strong soundtrack, it's well shot, and seems to have been done on a tight budget--a budget kept low thanks, in part, to some seamless and smart visual effects.
The movie has an unusual tone--set right from the start by the animated credit sequence. The odd and arresting soundtrack also contributes to the strange tone. I doubt it will get much of a regular release (I saw it at the Vancouver Film Festival) because of its determinedly indy tone.
SPOILER IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH: The script has some problems. The situation is just never pushed far enough, and the sense of jeopardy to the protagonists--the distressed couple--never becomes as dire as it should be. I was never really rooting for them, never feared for their marriage. Not because I didn't believe it could disintegrate, but because I just didn't care that much whether it failed or not. And the resolution is very weak. In the end, it seems the Parker Posey character returns to her husband not because she realizes that her marriage is worth saving, but because the architect turns out to be a fraud. Whatever happened to her complaint that her husband was stifling her? Of course, if that was the writer's intent--to point out that the couple's marriage held together only because of a lack of better alternatives--then I suppose the point is made. But it doesn't exactly leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling that a comedy is supposed to.