The Longest Week

There's nothing wrong, per se, with focusing one's camera and script firmly on the woes and heartaches of the filthy-rich. Indeed, some of the world's most revered film-makers have done so with remarkable success - Woody Allen and Wes Anderson have crafted charming, quirky and emotional films revolving firmly around characters with far too much money and not enough good sense. But creating empathy for hyper-privileged characters is a delicate affair, one that writer-director Peter Glanz - making the move from commercials to movies - more or less fluffs up in The Longest Week. The final film, evidently influenced by Allen, Anderson and copious amounts of offbeat French cinema, struggles to free itself from the quirky artifice that should disguise - and not constitute - the depth of his story and characters.

Conrad Valmont (Jason Bateman) lives a life of leisure and laziness within the comfortable surroundings of a Manhattan hotel belonging to his parents. As a job, he professes to be writing, although he is unlikely to ever complete, his great American novel. His splendid life is rudely disrupted when his parents decide to divorce - and neither father nor mother is willing to keep paying for Conrad's profligate lifestyle. Suddenly, he finds himself out on the street: a situation he temporarily addresses by moving into the swanky apartment belonging to his best friend, Dylan (Billy Crudup). Conrad also winds up making a move on Beatrice (Olivia Wilde), the smart, kooky model who has enjoyed a courtly, mutual flirtation with Dylan for quite some time.

Plot-wise, that's pretty much it. Newly-poor boy meets pretty girl, boy pretends to still be rich, girl falls for it, boy exploits friends (from Dylan to his long-serving, long-suffering butler) to continue his ruse, repeat ad nauseum. It's a narrative that requires considerable skill and sensitivity to pull off, because it could so easily come off as a vapid film glorifying the silly, fickle whims of the rich and fancy. There's no doubt some satire at work here (the title gives a hint as to the length of Conrad's suffering), but it's so blunt that it winds up getting lost in the rest of the film's excesses. In fact, Glanz frequently trades it in for a lot of indie/art-house accoutrements: take, for instance, the way in which it's impossible to quite set a date or time to the film's romanticised version of Manhattan, the almost deliberately French scene in which Conrad and Beatrice dance in a bar in New York, or the Andersonian title cards introducing different segments of the film.

The odd thing is how Glanz both benefits from and wastes his very good cast. On paper, Bateman is perfect for the part of Conrad: he's played a disinherited heir before on TV's Arrested Development, and has bucketloads of personal charm as an actor that could help make Conrad more palatable to audiences. To some extent, that's what Bateman does in practice. The writing keeps him from making Conrad truly sympathetic, but he gets the audience to care a little more when his character meanders into some truly dark places. Even so, it's hard to shake the feeling that - under Glanz's direction - Bateman is miscast. Wilde is charming as the Austen-obsessed Beatrice, but her character really represents little more than a reward for the two men of the story. Crudup, meanwhile, is at his most personable in the film, but Dylan, too, is more an afterthought than a fully-fledged character - both to Conrad and his own creator.

To be perfectly fair, The Longest Week never promises anything like depth. In fact, Glanz makes several pointed comments within the film about Conrad's immutably shallow nature. But, if a film really wants us to accept that its entire plot will do so little to affect its main character (and Conrad does change, albeit in very small ways), the journey has to be worth it. That's where the film falls short. It spends too much time enamoured of its own design and concept. In effect, Glanz transports his characters into a meticulously-crafted, quaintly ageless version of New York, but fails to really make them come to life in a meaningful way.

To call "The Longest Week" a delight would be an overstatement. To call it average would be unjust. The movie is a Wodehousian romance which features terrific visuals in almost every frame. That's right... Almost every frame is picture perfect like this is a Wes Anderson film. At the same time, the dialogues and the story are entirely "Allenesque". If you liked Fading Gigolo - an attempt to recreate Allenesque filmmaking - you will fall in love with The Longest Week.

Why is Jenny Slate top-billed when the story is clearly about Jason Bateman's philandering character? And why is Jenny Slate even in the movie? You could replace her character with anyone else, and you'd hardly notice any difference. I saw this at a preview screening. I hope the filmmakers realize it and change the billings.

The Longest Week has great visuals, good dialogue and soothing sounds (the soundtrack's totally piano and jazz). The film is also 80 minutes long, and yes, I for one was wanting more as the film was in some ways enchanting.

If you like Wes Anderson films, give it a shot for its beauty! Not a Wes Anderson fan? C'mon! Olivia Wilde is in the movie and she's drop dead gorgeous!

The Longest Week (2014)

What a strangely almost good movie. It has lots of compelling elements, including Jason Bateman as the nice guy leading man (though here he plays a spoiled rich boy). It's a complex enough story, and a love story, and it's set in lovely Brooklyn (an almost Manhattan). It should work. And second leading man Billy Crudup is terrific—better than Bateman.

So enjoy it for what it is? Sure. But it will kludge along at times, and will get a bit obvious at other times. The women (girlfriends, mainly) are weakly cast (or weakly directed), which doesn't help. But mostly it's a matter of originality—which is missing.

In fact, the whole thing is alike a Woody Allen mashup wannabe. The voice-over will make you think too much of "Vicky Christina Barcelona" and some of the photography of "Manhattan" but in color. (They even cast Allen regular Tony Roberts in a role as, yes, a shrink.) But mostly it's "Annie Hall" redux. In fact, it's almost a remake—girl meets unlikely boy, they have a romance, it goes south, and then boy re-evaluates (with direct stealing of ideas like having the plot reappear as a play, or in this case as a novel). And even if you don't like "Annie Hall" (which I do), you have to admit it came first, and is wonderfully original.

To add insult to injury, the whole set design and shooting style is straight out of Wed Anderson, though toned down to the point of being dull. (Anderson is never dull, at least visually.)

So what is left? Lots of little moments—quaint remarks (skipping over the brazenly sexist stuff that is meant to be funny and is mostly embarrassing, like the soccer practice) and a generally nice flow of events. It's easy to watch even if you aren't enthralled.

Director and writer Peter Glanz is fairly new to the scene, and this movie is a seven day expansion of an earlier indie success, "A Relationship in Four Days." No wonder this one feels about three days too long. See it? Maybe, if you already know you like the cast or the genre. Or maybe just give the Allen films a second try. Worlds apart.

Without Olivia Wilde, this would be absolutely unwatchable. It wants to be Goddardian and early Woody Allenesk, but it's lack of character development and its weak dialogue not to mention it being devoid of any philosophical or social commentary take it nowhere. Perhaps if Crudup had had the lead and Batemen wasn't cast at all, the acting would have made it more compelling?

This isn't such a bad movie as it is a slow movie. Outside of that it's perfectly watchable. At movies finish my first thought was 'this is a flick for the one percent'.

This story centers around a 40 year rich playboy who finds himself essentially broke for one week. Does he suffer? No! Does he learn anything about everyday life? No! Bateman as Conrad Valmont just escapes to his well off friends and successfully hides his new status as 'broke' at least for awhile. In the mean time he still lives the privileged life because he has a name associated with wealth and others just cater to him. Plus he is constantly looking inward. In the end nothing really changed him. His only act of altruism is giving a street person a box of cigarettes and replacing cash he stole from a friend. Oh and around all this is a love story!

The photography is lush, dialog is wonderful, the acting is fine. But the plot gets very slow about 40 minutes into the movie and you'll wonder where this is going. It goes no where because the one percent are so insulated from the outside world any change in their lifestyle is a brief inconvenience. He ends up right back where he started with a book he wrote that nobody cared for.