Bookends

"Bookends"

What a Birthday Party!

Amos Lassen

I have already written about Matt Riddlehoover in another of my reviews but just let me say here that this film, "Bookends", confirms what I have already said. Riddlehoover is a new talent to watch (and he's pretty cute to look at as well). "Bookends" will remind you of one of those evenings you have had when you got together with a group of friends whom you haven't seen in a while (or you have seen them but under different circumstances). In this film eight friends in their twenties get together to celebrate a birthday and as the evening passes, we learn a lot about the participants as we watch relationships become tested, hearts breaks and passions kindled anew. This is a very, very dark comedy and the laughter that comes is in a way a release from the goings-on on the screen. What I found especially interesting is that some of the cast members also appear in another of Riddlehoover's film but here they are completely different. I found myself siding with several of them at different times in the film. The actors are so completely natural that I felt that I could have been watching this very same thing happen right in my own living room and although I have never had such a total experience, memories flooded back to me of a very similar evening. It is impossible for the viewer to not see himself in one of the roles and the film, by and large, won me over from the opening shot.

What the hell was this film!! A buddy film where a few friends meet over alight could be so much more interesting. Rather, we get this film which is boring, confused, lackluster and laid with poor direction. Neither actors with their decent acting could save the film because the overall direction and screenplay was so confused and all over the place

The film starts with Russell and Brett getting ready for Donnie's birthday. Plans change and we see that everyone ends up coming to Russell's house for the birthday. We have Donnie and his new girlfriend, Gayle, a common friend with her fiancé and another girl. Donnie, Gayle and Brett were together in school at some point. Brett keeps traveling to NY since he is into music and keeps looking for girls for one night stands. Some random scenes with the film sometimes going back to a year, sometimes, few hours, sometimes few months. What I ultimately got out was that Russell likes Brett, Brett likes Gayle who is engaged and some other confusion.

I have seen many independent films but this film was just so boring. If I was in one of those parties as shown in the film, I would have walked away because it would have been so boring. And whats up with constant time shifting. It just adds to the confusion because all the characters look and behave exactly the same way. Acting was bad by pretty much everyone. I think Russell was the only saving grace. And please! this is NOT a gay film by any means. Its a regular independent film where Russell happens to be gay but despite all this the film is still plain boring.