Nobody Walks

Given the screenplay was co-written by Lena Dunham, creator and breakout star of HBO's "Girls", I was hoping this 2012 indie relationship drama would resonate strongly like Lisa Cholodenko's acclaimed Los Angeles-set films ("Laurel Canyon", "The Kids Are All Right"), especially with such a smart cast of actors. However, something feels amiss in director Ry Russo-Young's coolish approach to a familiar story of adulterous deception and family dysfunction. The pacing feels glacial, and the characters are just not that involving emotionally. Perhaps that was the intention in showing the shallow nature of the lifestyle being portrayed, but it rubs off on the film's inertia leaving it feeling quite flat. The setting is LA's funky-chic Silver Lake neighborhood where sound engineer Peter lives with his psychotherapist wife Julie along with their young son and her teenaged daughter from a previous marriage, Kolt. They epitomize the laid-back, everything's-cool attitudes one associates with affluent Southern Californians.

Enter Martine, a New York acquaintance of Julie's college friend who happens to be an attractive 23-year-old experimental filmmaker. She has agreed to work as Peter's assistant in exchange for him helping out on her latest project, an arty video installation revolving around close- ups of ants. How Martine emotionally invades the family is the crux of the story, and to the credit of Russo-Young and Dunham, she never comes across as an unrepentant interloper like more commercially driven exploitative films have done in the past. It's just that the plot pretty much goes the way you would expect it would go from the outset, although the characters carry decidedly ambiguous natures that make some of the story turns feel more complex than they really need to be. For instance, the inevitable tryst between Martine and Peter lacks believable passion because it feels almost matter-of-fact. In hindsight, I feel like it should have been the driving force in pushing each character toward self-examination.

The cast is not really at fault here as the acting, for the most part, is sensitive and assured. Olivia Thirlby (the best friend in "Juno") provides the requisite gamine quality needed to make Martine credible as an object of obsession even if her character remains a cipher throughout. The always becalming Rosemarie DeWitt ("Rachel Getting Married") delivers a thoughtful balancing act between earth mother and jealous wife as Julie. John Krasinski has a bit harder time escaping his amiable good-guy image from "The Office" and "Away We Go", but he does provide some surprisingly heated moments as Peter that make you wonder if he could do a greater variety of roles on screen. As the constantly yearning Kolt, India Ennenga appears to be channeling early Claire Danes, but she makes the character's unrequited love palpable. In smaller parts, Justin Kirk as a horned-up Hollywood screenwriter and Julie's attentive patient and Dylan McDermott as her self-possessed ex- husband bring much needed alpha energy to the proceedings. A late meltdown scene with Kolt's smarmy Italian tutor (Emanuele Secci) feels very out of place. Lethargic viewing.

Just saw this movie today and was a little disappointed with it. The acting is decent enough, the dialogue is not terrible (except for one scene, which will be obvious), the characters were interesting. It was all enough to make me engrossed in the film, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. I kept waiting for the sh** to hit the fan and it never did.

Sorry to say that the story seemed a little under-developed to me. The stakes never seemed high enough to make you really worried for any of the characters. And what was supposed to be the climax of the film is really just a tiny spurt of nothing.

I hope the writer continues to develop further, as she obviously has the ability to create unique and interesting characters, but she just needs to learn to do more with those characters. She certainly had the time to do so in this film, as the running time is short and there were definitely sub-plots that could've been cut out entirely (the Italian teacher for instance)

Martine (Olivia Thirlby) is a young artist making an art film about insects. Peter (John Krasinski) is a sound engineer helping her out to finish the film. She slowly draws the attention of Peter and creates conflict with his wife Julie (Rosemarie DeWitt).

Krasinski is playing against his usual nice guy type. He is still playing a version of it but corrupting it. It's actually quite off-putting to see it. Thirlby is wonderfully charming as a girl who shy away from commitments. She's one of the more interesting young actresses around. She doesn't overplay the role. She neither the victim nor the aggressor. The daughter Kolt played by India Ennenga has an interesting role. All of it should add up to a very compelling movie. However it feels rather under written and empty. The characters act but without major consequences. The couple's marriage wasn't much to begin with, they didn't really fight for it, and it isn't much at the end. In the end, everybody walks.

You know when someone is telling you a story and you're kinda into it, wondering when it's gonna get good, and then they just stop talking? And you're just like "uhh, you're done?"

That is what this film is. Not gonna lie, I was above averagely interested in the plot, and was interested in the film mainly because I wanted to see one of my favorite actors try to play someone other than Jim Halpert. It may take John Krasinski a bit of work to be able to drop his "Jim" persona, of which I didn't see much in this film, so good job there.

I would like to commend the young actress who took on this film and turned it into something that wasn't a complete waste of time. I would never be interested in watching this film again, but I won't say it was an offense to the film world.

Overall, just skip it. You don't get any insight into life, you don't come away with anything, you don't really care about the characters, but if you have or had a life that was plagued with promiscuity, you might be able to relate, but also may be repulsed by some of the characters.

Maybe I just got my expectations down to that special level of low, I find Lena Dunham stuff to be horrible, tiny furniture was just one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. So I think seeing her name attached to this helped me enjoy it because I thought okay this will be bad, and when it turned out to be good I was happy.

What makes this movie entertaining is you can watch any of the actors involved on their own, they could have made any of the characters the lead or the main focus and you would have been into it. I actually thought the length was a huge negative, ended maybe a good 15 minutes too early, from opening to credits it was a mere 78 minutes long although it might claim to be longer.

There isn't much of a plot, an artist moves in with a family she stirs things up, I won't give away too much but she's an attractive woman around men who like attractive women so its not that difficult to figure out. The movie does a good job of just sort of moving along without being about anything. One of the weak links was this sub plot with an Italian teacher, I could have done without that it was a little odd.

The young lead actresses India Ennenga who plays the sixteen year old step daughter to Krasinski, and of course the artist woman Olivia Thirlby held it all together and kept it interesting even when it dragged along. I don't know why this movie made so little money, it was decent, maybe it didn't get a big release. I just found it via netflix as I am sure most other people found it that way too.

I would say watch this with no expectations, and if you like movies with lots of action and dramatic arcs then just skip this one, this is more of an experience film.