The Letter

"On that first night of course we didn't know who you were, or what you would do to us, or what you would do to me." Martine (Ryder) is a New York playwright who is getting a chance to direct her boyfriend in a new play she wrote. Soon after rehearsals begin an unknown actor, Tyrone (Franco) shows up and begins to cause tension. His acting is good but he is hostile to everyone except Martine. While the rehearsals are going on Martine begins to become paranoid and thinks someone is trying to kill her. Her re-writes of the play begin to confuse the actors and the line between life and paranoia are blurred. First of all I will say this is not terrible but this is another movie that tries to be artsy for the sake of being artsy. I find the easiest way to describe movies sometimes are to compare them to others that many have seen. I open with that because it seemed like this movie tried it's hardest to be like "Black Swan" but never quite making it. Very limited scenery and actors but the main focus is on Martine's slow descent into madness. You begin to question if she is just overly paranoid or if her concerns are legit. This is the type of movie that keeps you wondering about that which helps you make it through. Overall, an OK movie but tried to be artsy for the sake of being artsy. I give it a B-.

If you saw the trailer and thought it was interesting then don't bother; you'll hate this film. I mean it. Don't even think about watching.

If, on the other hand, you saw the trailer and thought "oh great, another forgettable thriller about a creepy guy and clueless chick. When will anyone try anything new for chrissake??" then hold your horses because this movie might be just for you.

"The Letter" marks the 2nd pairing of the phenomenal acting/directing team of James Franco and his professor Jay Anania (the first being the excellent film "Vincent" aka "Shadows & Lies"). This time Winona Ryder joins the group and adds her own perfect eccentricity to the mix. Ryder plays the part of "Martine" a playwright who is putting on a production with 5 actors including a shadowy newcomer "Tyrone" (Franco).

As the play progresses, reality begins to wrap itself around imagination and vice versa. Some have compared this to other recent mindbenders like "Black Swan" and "Memento", but I would say this film outshines them all due to Anania's fierce, stylistic approach which really gets into your head. There aren't really any shocks, thrills, chills, gore or other cheapshots to make you spill your popcorn. Instead, it's a very insidious, unsettling visual approach, as well as disjoint audio, that draws you into the mounting tension and confusion of Martine's mentally unbalanced psyche. No monsters or broken mirror shards required. That's one thing to remember about this film: it doesn't stoop to cheap thrills but instead stands by its somber, anti-Hollywood approach.

Something else to know about this film; it moves at the speed of reality, that is "slowly" by movie standards. So if you get bored easily, you might want to look elsewhere. There are scenes of dialogue with actual pauses between people speaking, like in real life, how about that? Sometimes there are periods of silence that might make the audience feel uncomfortable if they're expecting some sort of rapid fire, scripted tit-for-tat. But if you're prepared for a voyeuristic experience of watching other people's lives, this nails it. Don't get me wrong; not a single scene is wasted and there's no fluff or filler. It's just that Anania allows the scenes to breathe a little. The pacing is similar to something you might get in from a European director (Kieslowsky, Tarkovsky, maybe Bela Tarr after a few cups of coffee) and the visual poetry is reminiscent of the Japanese masters Kurosawa & Teshigahara with a distinct, hip, modern look (extreme saturation, contrast and exposure) as you might see in Aronofsky or Paul Thomas Anderson. The overall package is distinctly Anania.

And how can I end this without a word about Franco. Although his role may strike you as being smaller than you'd expect (Winona Ryder is the star), each time he graces the camera it's done with so much poise and confidence you find yourself wondering who would win in a cool-off between Franco & Bogart. Hate to admit it, but I think Franco would win by a hair.

Well, hard to pile on anything more in the way of making fun of this thing.

So, I'll tack on my two cents regarding the various characters' hair pieces - which, for me were atrociously distracting and took up all my concentration.

For example, Josh Hamilton - as a younger but nonetheless middle aged man, why is it so horrible to just show his naturally receding hairline - why add a "piece" on top and then comb strands of that piece down over his forward such that all you spend your watching time doing is trying to figure what he'd look like without the piece.

And James France - again, understandably - and quite comfortably, naturally - thinning on top - but, oh no, let's first, stick a hair piece on top and - brace yourself - hot curl that sucker into "boyish" twirlicues. And, to add insult to injury, his whole head of hair - real and toupe - is dyed a shiny greasy shoe polish black - every time he leaned back on any of the stage furniture upholstery I pictured a big black stain residue.

And the women -first, I don't know if Katherine Waterson just naturally has a lot of hair, but if they did add extensions then they way overdid it - she often looks like nothing else so much as "Thing" on the Addams family.

And does Winona escape this hair piece Armageddon? Oh no, - there is one chunk of a very strangly strand of wiry hair that is consistently combed from sort of the top of her head down over the middle of her forehead down over her eyes - like more of a forelock of some sort rather than just bangs - it's quite bizarre - not sure what cosmetic effect it was intended to achieve. And, btw, Winona's various dye jobs are also way too dark - more shoe polish.

Well, you get the idea - of course, there's all the other stuff that makes this thing utterly insufferable - the plinking piano notes score, the ever pretentious in-focus/out-of-focus shots of random New York City tree foliage, the claustrophobic "Greenwich Village theatre scene denizens" of it all, the incredibly tedious dreamlife, and incessant articulation of and fixation on, Wynona's character's dreams, etc etc.

In sum, this thing is mainly a joke on itself. I mean with dialogue lines like "And then I heard birds" delivered with absolutely breathless self-awareness, how can you not do a spit-take of your popcorn laughing out loud. Lol.

As much as I like both James Franco and Winona Ryder, this may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. A complete snooze-fest from start to finish. The movie's screenplay was as much of a bore as the play within the movie! The cast looks bored most of the time.

Absolutely nothing of consequence happens in this picture...nothing! I kept looking at the timer on the DVD player thinking something should be happening soon...but it never did! Truly a wasted hour and a half of my life! Thankfully, there were no extras to watch on the disk. Had there been any, I wonder if any explanation of the purpose of the film would have been forthcoming? I gave it 2 stars simply for the audacity of putting the story on film!

Okay... I like movies that challenge me to think. But boring me to death as they lead me, an hour later, to pause it because, by god, both my date and I have fallen asleep...?

Art? Yes, this movie is art BUT, I would rather look at some paintings on a wall.... and watch the paint dry... And this review page requiring me to write 10 lines of review on a movie that can be summarized in five lines is almost as bad as being subjected to this movie in the first place.

Pretty Winona and all of the pretty men in this movie did not compensate for the loss of realization by the production people that the art of movies must have some emotional rewards or they are merely nice paintings 'on celluloid".

Good acting, I suppose, given the demands of this movie's intent to puzzle and intrigue. But endless weaK intrigue and puzzling dialogue with brief hints of the final analysis dd nothing to stop my eyelids from dropping shut. The reality is, me thinks, that most of us will find this movie as something we might add to 'an art collection' that would never make it to our display walls. This would be because we would fear too many of our friends actually beating their head, in frustration, upon 'the painting' so that they would never be subjected to it again... or so curious to watch it again and again, to find 'what did I miss'?, that they finally awaken to realize that they have just wasted hours of their lives.

Or, perhaps, awakening to the realization that this was boring art is not a waste of time for others? It was to me. A movie I would not have wasted my time on had I visited this review page first...