Reviews

Cringe-worthy the entire time. He sticks it in the crazy. Well, technically, she rapes him. And refuses to stop to put on a condom. Because, hey, what's more fun that getting pregnant or an STD after a one-night stand? He hangs out with her for an entire day to make sure she takes both pills, but can't tell her this because, oh yeah, she's crazy. She tricks him into going to the apartment she shared with her ex, who is devastated over her breaking up with him (so every time she whines about how she's getting over a long relationship, it's a put-on). She tricks him into meeting her family, in which her father insults him every minute (and yeah, I understood the French dialog). Turns out Fred has a girlfriend. Girlfriend insists they adopt a cat even though he is allergic and their lease won't allow it. She is a witch-with-a-B and kinda crazy too. She cheats on him, too, don't waste your sympathy. He breaks up with her. Finally, a scene where something goes right. Then he runs over to crazy-chick's apartment. A scene in which I lose all hope for this movie. But wait! She wasn't there! He hasn't seen her in 5 weeks. He sees her on the street and charms her phone number out of her. Apparently crazy is contagious.

My hopes were too high for what this movie delivered. The acting was pretty good, but the movie starts to fall apart just as the plot speeds up. I blame both the script and the directing. See, the problem is that Harry doesn't know what he wants. And he's too chicken to pursue girls on his own, so he outsources the task by having an arranged marriage, except he does it under the pretext of ensuring lasting marital happiness. And then he chickens out of that too (but not before what might be the Indian wedding equivalent of saying "I do"). So here's the real spoiler and shame of the film: he's got an Indian girl ready to marry him and an American girl ready to date him...but he ends up single in the end, for reasons that are a mystery to me (and probably the two girls). I have a feeling the sequel will be Harry as The Indian 40-yr-old Virgin.

This movie is billed as "drama/romance". Perhaps I prefer my dramas a little more dramatic, or my romances with more than just fleeting desire. This movie is not much more than the camera following Juliette and Tareq as they wander along Cairo's streets and see some sights while they get to know each other a bit and wait for her husband to arrive. There is not great "forbidden romance", just hopes of one on the part of the audience. The filmmakers could have at least made the husband an appealing character, but he just doesn't begin to compare to handsome elegant Tareq, and I, for one, was disappointed with Juliette's end choice.

This movie deserves a spot next to "When Harry Met Sally" in my DVD collection. The movie jumps back and forth in the storyline, which was a clever way to lay out the plot, but you have to pay attention, so you can keep track of how much time elapses between various key events. Great use of music. It's not explicitly stated, but the story is told from the perspective of the male lead, Tom, and thus neither you nor Tom ever quite understand why the female lead (Summer) feels or acts the way she does. This is important to know, because this is how things are in real life and often leads to frustration, especially if "Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't." Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a perfect job of making the viewer feel every high and low on Tom's 500-day journey, and Zooey Deschanel gives Summer the qualities of being both approachable and unattainable.

This is a well-made movie, with no glaring flaws (unlike the other SIFF film with Röhm and Roberts). Unfortunately, there's not too much more to the story than what the SIFF blurb tells you, and I was left feeling that there was much more story and emotion to be had from the characters if we could have spent another hour in their world. On paper there certainly are plenty of reasons to feel for these characters, but in the end I just didn't care that much about what happened to them. According to the director, the CIA angle of the story was not part of the original plot, which explains why it seems out of place as anything more than a vehicle for the ex-spy's character's to spy on his daughter.

7/10

Saw this at its world premiere at SIFF, where half the audience was cast/crew members. Between that, the fact that it was filmed in Seattle (I even unknowingly saw a scene being filmed), and that I'm an Elisabeth Röhm fan from Law & Order, I think is keeping me from panning this movie to the level it deserves, but I'll try.

This movie is certainly entertaining, which, after labeling itself a screwball comedy, should be a given. The problem starts early on, when Elisabeth Röhm's character Angela transforms into a loony screwball character after playing the first several scenes fairly straight. You keep waiting for her to "drop the act" and play it straight again, especially since Angela went to acting school, but she never does and her wacky behavior is never explained. Are we really supposed to believe that this alpha woman who on a professional basis transforms criminals into likable witnesses at trial would herself completely lose her composure on the stand? The supporting characters were all great, my favorite being Pisay Pao as Angela's housekeeper-in-disguise. Sean Patrick Flanery was Angela's wanna-be leading man Gary, written as the unoriginal nice guy friend who's been making puppy dog eyes at his friend since forever, hoping she comes around to seeing him as the man she wanted all along but didn't know it. When they finally get together at the end, the scene feels forced and rushed, resulting in classic bad acting. This is the scene that for me sunk the whole movie far lower than it could have been.

In the end we're supposed to believe Angela has "seen the light" about how her job undermines justice, but the movie fails to convince, in part because Angela is still not being played straight, but also because the movie here fails to follow the first rule of storytelling, "show, don't tell".

Also, several elements of back-story are alluded to but never developed further. Maybe they would have given this movie some much-needed depth.

What is this movie about? I watched the credits roll after 94 minutes and I still have no idea. This is the most boring movie I have ever sat through. I should have walked out 30 minutes into it, when the idea first occurred to me. OK, so the Jeffers Corporation rules the world (or something like that), its official salute is the middle finger, and there is an epidemic of people randomly exploding into tiny pieces. George deals with all of this with a mixture of denial/apathy, anger, and an obsession with George Washington. His marriage is rocky, his son is never on screen, and his brother is pole-vaulting in the backyard. But still, there is no plot and no explanations of the movie's bizarre world. The only redeeming values of this movie are its leading ladies, entertaining Judy Greer as the wife, and ethereal Mia Maestro as the co-worker and love interest. Also, the sound engineer must have been asleep on the job -- I often could not hear what was being said.

This movie had a lot of potential. The actors were believable and the story was interesting, but the director apparently wanted to give this film a unique style -- boring, elongated scenes that don't move the story along, and an ending that resolved nothing. The plot doesn't reveal itself till about a third of the way into the movie; without any hint or rhyme or reason, 61-year-old Slimane, recently laid-off from his dockyard job, buys a junky boat and decides to turn it into a restaurant that features fish couscous, the delicious dish his ex-wife cooks for his appreciative extended family. Slimane always looks downtrodden and rarely speaks or shows emotion throughout the film, a frustrating but appropriate contrast to feisty teenage Rym, his lover's daughter who adores him like a father. She takes charge of this restaurant project, starting with trying to get the bank loan to renovate the boat. We are told later that the bank will not take a risk on this project, so a large dinner party is planned to show the bank and others that the restaurant is a great idea. The boat is renovated, though we aren't told how Slimane financed this. The movie reaches its emotional high point here, with the party on the verge of failure, and then the credits roll abruptly, leaving nothing resolved, unless you consider the likely-but-unconfirmed death of Slimane as a resolution.