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Directed by: Alan Rudolph Starring: Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, Denis Leary Dr. Dave Hurst (Campbell Scott) and his wife (Hope Davis) run a dental practice near their quiet suburban home. Dave is a loving, caring, soft-spoken individual who is afraid of confrontation. When Dave catches his wife kissing another man he loses his white upper middle class safety net. After discovering Dana might be having an affair, he notices odd tidbits of behavior from Dana, like the way she overdresses to run for errands or the way he witnesses act out her discontent before entering the house after a late night. He becomes neurotic and creates an alter ego of himself to act out his frustrations (Denis Leary) Dave then engages in an internal struggle with his alter ego to try and keep peace in his family, while at the same time trying to save his marriage. David believing the best course of action being to ignore the problem, while deep down this is contrived completely out of fear, afraid that was confronted with the allegations his wife will choose her lover over him. Denis’s believes the best course of action to be killing David’s wife with a fire poker. Let me start by saying this movie is not for everyone, I can see very few people sitting down and enjoying this movie. It is a very deep film, which moves very slowly, scattered with sparse humor provided entirely by Denis Leary. The movie does an excellent job of creating a real sense of empathy for Dave, and while you hope everything will work out you have a morbid curiosity as to how badly things will end. Spoilers: GOD THE ENDING SUCKED!! The entire movie was building up to a horrible confrontation and destruction of Dave’s life as he tries to pick up the pieces, the entire theme of the movie is him being FORCED to confront his problems. The ending sputters off into a limbo of nothing, and leaves you wondering “WELL WHAT THE HELL IS GOING TO HAPPEN!” You’re stunned that the credits are rolling by and the story has not resolved itself. The director did this intentionally to leave you to draw your own conclusions, BUT THAT IS NOT WHY I GO TO A MOVIE; it’s like reading a book and discovering the last two chapters have been torn out. It’s like watching a monster movie that never shows you the monster. It’s like paying a hooker $500 and not getting to climax. I don’t care how much of an artsy human being visionary it makes you look like, I don’t want to see some continuation of the struggle I just watched 2 hours of already, I want to see Dave beat his wife to death with a tire iron! gently caress you, you loving pussy piece of poo poo Alan Rudolph RATING: 2.5 PROS: A good drama that does an excellent job of sucking you into the characters lives. CONS: Very slow ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314630/ Mrens fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Sep 19, 2004 |
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Sep 14, 2004 11:05
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I liked this movie at first. The cast was all really good, even the kids, and I don't think I've seen any other movie about a family that feels so real. It's not stylized or exaggerated at all, it feels like a real honest to god family. The problem is when the "plot" proper kicks in and it moves away from that realism. Instead we get Dennis Leary becoming the devil on Scott's shoulder telling him to say/do things he really wants to, and he starts being mean, and people don't like him as much anymore. Meanwhile, nothing happens. It's a slow, ultimately pointless film that has some nuggets of truth and ingenuity in the midst of a whole lotta nothing. 2.5
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Sep 27, 2004 05:59
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I saw this movie in 2003 at Sundance, and I must say, it was the dog of my trip. I liked Dennis Leary's performance in the film, and the comedy is quite funny. Beyond that, I hated the characters so much. The father's (Campbell Scott) complete reluctance to take any form of control over his family, discipline his children or actually show some backbone in his interactions with wife and daughter just made the script so obnoxiously difficult to swallow. I really disliked it and I get anxiety thinking back on it. Funny thing is, both my father and I hated the film so much, and I think it's one of the few reviews of Sundance that he and I agreed on. We had something to talk about, and it was great. Voted 1.5 for performances only.
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Sep 27, 2004 07:14
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