"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.
