3
This movie has gotten a pretty mixed reaction - on the one hand saying these are tedious and mean characters, on the other that it is witty and well-written script. So since it’s about a college professor who likes to hear himself talk let me, a college professor who likes to hear himself talk, straighten out the disparity.
It is a clever and often laugh out loud script though the characters are a little one dimensional and their growth as humans does feel forced. But that’s not the real problem. These are good performances, but every role is cast directly to type so we lose a sense of surprise and dimension: Thomas Hayden Church revisits the dissipated middle aged Sideways character; Ellen Page is again smart and wise cracking beyond her years; Dennis Quaid is a slightly falling apart self serving guy and doesn’t really do too much to help us understand his bitterness, and Sarah Jessica is an intelligent and kind of pretty/sexy single gal looking for earnestness much like Carrie Bradshaw. The director could have cast against our expected reading of these actors and we would have more to work with, though as is they serve the text well. The biggest problem is the music. The director needs to let the script breath. The film is written in quick short scenes with dreadful pop songs to emphasize the “bittersweet⠀ undertones. I’d really rather read the scene myself. This soundtrack is unnecessary and annoying. It was written mostly by the guys from the band Extreme (Gary Cherrone and Nuno Bettencort) who just aren’t movie composers, yet. The movie needs to allow the audience to come to it, not push everything in our faces. But it is cleverly written. That may be reason enough to go see these actors work, if you can just tune out the soundtrack.
I wouldn’t call the movie depressing.. it’s just... nothing.. has no redeeming quality of any kind – the entire 1hour 33min run time it is stuck in the muck – keep your money and buy some day old bread to feed the pigeons it’s more entertaining.
What a depressing movie. The trailer gave me the impression of some light hearted humor.... I chuckled just a few times. If smart means being totally dysfunctional, then the writer made his point. This movie is not even worth watching on DVD!
What a disappointment. I like all the players but the movie just stunk. Was it the author\'s point that smart people are unhappy and boring? If so, bullseye in giving your audience empathy. Ellen Page is cute but her character was too much like Juno, time to break out of that mold.