Conversations With Other Women
Screened at South by Southwest
As Conversations With Other Women begins, the screen is split in half. One side watches Aaron Eckhart, seemingly in Lothario mode, as he stalks a wedding party guest he intends to approach; the other watches his prey, Helena Bonham Carter.
Nice way to jump into the action, you think: The camera establishes our identification with Eckhart from within (the POV shots) and without; when the image goes full-screen, we'll know who the protagonist is in this pas de deux.
A few minutes later, though, you're still waiting -- and an overtly clever device starts to become a serious distraction from the tale it's trying to tell. Director Hans Canosa continues the split screen throughout the film, often keeping us from identifying with the drama as we otherwise would. Although the technique occasionally serves some interesting purpose, it is almost certain to be a stumbling block with audiences, limiting the commercial appeal of an already intimate film.
The two protagonists are never named, and the script (by Gabrielle Zevin, who worked with Canosa on the festival-circuit film Alma Mater) is coy about their histories. We quickly learn that this is no straightforward pickup: The two have met before, years ago, under similar circumstances. As they flirt, one side of the screen will sometimes flit back to that earlier meeting, where two younger actors play the pair. We see enough to know that they met more than once, maybe that they were lovers. Why is their conversation not acknowledging this?
One obvious reason is to make things more interesting for us. Viewers who don't find the conceit too contrived will be drawn into the reasonably witty banter, forgetting about the split-angle distraction until Canosa does something particularly distracting: settling the cameras into two nearly parallel views, say, or sending an extra to pass between us and the actors, jostling our sense of the angles involved. He does this fairly often.
At other times the filmmakers do more profitable things with the dual frames. They show us what a character is thinking, in romantic flashback or quick slices of foreshadowing; late in the game, as the pair begin to make decisions with consequences, they use the extra screen to show alternate line readings, roads considered and not taken. Those glimpses become freighted with melancholy as the tale becomes a reflection on the passing of time and the vicissitudes of love. Both performances are strong, though the film continues to favor Eckhart, who may be harboring deep emotions beneath his glib charm.
Eckhart grows alternately peevish and desperate as things don't go his way. Bonham Carter, on the other hand, seems to allow herself to be led around, more preoccupied with a sudden sense of her age than with her old flame. The characters are not completely convincing as scripted, but the actors skate past this with enough charisma that we don't pause to ask questions. (Why is Bonham Carter at the wedding, for example? The explanation offered in the opening scenes becomes less satisfactory the more we learn.)
That the movie holds viewers' attention despite its contrivances is a testament to the script and acting. Whether audiences will respect the film the morning after the seduction is an open question.
CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN
Fabrication Films
Gordonstreet Pictures
Credits:
Director: Hans Canosa
Screenwriter: Gabrielle Zevin
Producers: Ram Bergman, Bill McCutchen, Kerry Barden
Executive producers: Kwesi Collisson, Mark R. Harris, Kjehl Rasmussen, Glen Reynolds
Director of photography: Steve Yedlin
Production designer: Jodie Lynn Tillen
Music: Chris Violette, Starr Parodi, Jeff Eden Fair
Co-producers: Wendy Reeds, Mark Tchelistcheff
Costumes: Douglas Hall
Editor: Hans Canosa
Cast:
Woman: Helena Bonham Carter
Man: Aaron Eckhart
Young Woman: Nora Zehetner
Young Man: Erik Eidem
Videographer: Thomas Lennon
Bridesmaid: Olivia Wilde
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 84 minutes...
As Conversations With Other Women begins, the screen is split in half. One side watches Aaron Eckhart, seemingly in Lothario mode, as he stalks a wedding party guest he intends to approach; the other watches his prey, Helena Bonham Carter.
Nice way to jump into the action, you think: The camera establishes our identification with Eckhart from within (the POV shots) and without; when the image goes full-screen, we'll know who the protagonist is in this pas de deux.
A few minutes later, though, you're still waiting -- and an overtly clever device starts to become a serious distraction from the tale it's trying to tell. Director Hans Canosa continues the split screen throughout the film, often keeping us from identifying with the drama as we otherwise would. Although the technique occasionally serves some interesting purpose, it is almost certain to be a stumbling block with audiences, limiting the commercial appeal of an already intimate film.
The two protagonists are never named, and the script (by Gabrielle Zevin, who worked with Canosa on the festival-circuit film Alma Mater) is coy about their histories. We quickly learn that this is no straightforward pickup: The two have met before, years ago, under similar circumstances. As they flirt, one side of the screen will sometimes flit back to that earlier meeting, where two younger actors play the pair. We see enough to know that they met more than once, maybe that they were lovers. Why is their conversation not acknowledging this?
One obvious reason is to make things more interesting for us. Viewers who don't find the conceit too contrived will be drawn into the reasonably witty banter, forgetting about the split-angle distraction until Canosa does something particularly distracting: settling the cameras into two nearly parallel views, say, or sending an extra to pass between us and the actors, jostling our sense of the angles involved. He does this fairly often.
At other times the filmmakers do more profitable things with the dual frames. They show us what a character is thinking, in romantic flashback or quick slices of foreshadowing; late in the game, as the pair begin to make decisions with consequences, they use the extra screen to show alternate line readings, roads considered and not taken. Those glimpses become freighted with melancholy as the tale becomes a reflection on the passing of time and the vicissitudes of love. Both performances are strong, though the film continues to favor Eckhart, who may be harboring deep emotions beneath his glib charm.
Eckhart grows alternately peevish and desperate as things don't go his way. Bonham Carter, on the other hand, seems to allow herself to be led around, more preoccupied with a sudden sense of her age than with her old flame. The characters are not completely convincing as scripted, but the actors skate past this with enough charisma that we don't pause to ask questions. (Why is Bonham Carter at the wedding, for example? The explanation offered in the opening scenes becomes less satisfactory the more we learn.)
That the movie holds viewers' attention despite its contrivances is a testament to the script and acting. Whether audiences will respect the film the morning after the seduction is an open question.
CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN
Fabrication Films
Gordonstreet Pictures
Credits:
Director: Hans Canosa
Screenwriter: Gabrielle Zevin
Producers: Ram Bergman, Bill McCutchen, Kerry Barden
Executive producers: Kwesi Collisson, Mark R. Harris, Kjehl Rasmussen, Glen Reynolds
Director of photography: Steve Yedlin
Production designer: Jodie Lynn Tillen
Music: Chris Violette, Starr Parodi, Jeff Eden Fair
Co-producers: Wendy Reeds, Mark Tchelistcheff
Costumes: Douglas Hall
Editor: Hans Canosa
Cast:
Woman: Helena Bonham Carter
Man: Aaron Eckhart
Young Woman: Nora Zehetner
Young Man: Erik Eidem
Videographer: Thomas Lennon
Bridesmaid: Olivia Wilde
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 84 minutes...
- 3/30/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Southie'
Like "Monument Ave.", also presented at the Montreal World Film Festival, John Shea's "Southie" is a drama set in the insular world of the Irish Boston underground. It explores familiar terrain in an effective if underwhelming manner and serves as a showcase for Donnie Wahlberg's budding thespian skills and Shea's well-textured direction.
Wahlberg plays Danny Quinn, who has returned to his Irish Catholic neighborhood of South Boston after a three-year absence. Now reformed and determined to avoid returning to a cycle of alcohol and crime, Danny soon finds that every time he tries to get out, they keep pulling him back in.
His family is a mess: His widowed mother (Anne Meara) is ill with a heart condition and increasingly distraught about her children; sister Kathy (Rose McGowan) is a self-destructive alcoholic; and brothers Davey (Robert Wahlberg) and Jimmy (Steve Koslowski) are in debt to the mob. His ex-girlfriend, Marianne (Amanda Peet), is bitter about his desertion and doesn't want anything to do with him, and his old nemesis, Joey Ward (James Cummings, who also co-scripted), is gunning for revenge.
Danny's old friends Whitey (Will Arnett) and Will (Josh Marchette) enlist him to help bankroll an after-hours gambling club, which he reluctantly agrees to after his opportunity for a legit construction job is scuttled by a brawl that breaks out between his brother and the son of the local union boss at a wedding reception. Unfortunately, Joey is another silent partner, and hell eventually breaks loose in a series of violent and tragic confrontations.
The film suffers from an overwrought narrative, with one melodramatic event after another. Not helping matters is Shea's tendency to indulge his actors, allowing them scenery-chewing histrionics that only accentuates the material's excesses.
Still, there's much raw talent on display, with Donnie Wahlberg matching brother Mark in terms of macho appeal and unforced naturalism and promising talents McGowan and Cummings providing equally vivid performances. Shea has a small role as Danny's cop cousin and underplays nicely. Lawrence Tierney, playing the local mob boss (who else?), provides his usual potent, noirish presence.
The film is most effective in its depiction of the insular world that the characters inhabit, with generous dashes of local color evocatively captured by Allen Baker's cinematography. The well-chosen soundtrack, featuring world and Celtic music as well as rap, adds greatly to the overall ambience.
SOUTHIE
Prophecy Pictures
Director: John Shea
Screenplay: John Shea, James Cummings, David McLaughlin
Producers: Hugh Wilson, Bill McCutchen, James Cummings, Michael Butler
Executive producers: Donnie Wahlberg, Carder Stout, Ron Habakus
Director of photography: Allen Baker
Editor: Tracy Granger
Music: Wayne Sharpe
Color/stereo
Cast:
Danny: Donnie Wahlberg
Kathy: Rose McGowan
Joey: James Cummings
Mrs. Quinn: Anne Meara
Colie: Lawrence Tierney
Davey: Robert Wahlberg
Jimmy: Steve Koslowski
Marianne: Amanda Peet
Whitey: Will Arnett
Will: Josh Marchette
Peter: John Shea
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Wahlberg plays Danny Quinn, who has returned to his Irish Catholic neighborhood of South Boston after a three-year absence. Now reformed and determined to avoid returning to a cycle of alcohol and crime, Danny soon finds that every time he tries to get out, they keep pulling him back in.
His family is a mess: His widowed mother (Anne Meara) is ill with a heart condition and increasingly distraught about her children; sister Kathy (Rose McGowan) is a self-destructive alcoholic; and brothers Davey (Robert Wahlberg) and Jimmy (Steve Koslowski) are in debt to the mob. His ex-girlfriend, Marianne (Amanda Peet), is bitter about his desertion and doesn't want anything to do with him, and his old nemesis, Joey Ward (James Cummings, who also co-scripted), is gunning for revenge.
Danny's old friends Whitey (Will Arnett) and Will (Josh Marchette) enlist him to help bankroll an after-hours gambling club, which he reluctantly agrees to after his opportunity for a legit construction job is scuttled by a brawl that breaks out between his brother and the son of the local union boss at a wedding reception. Unfortunately, Joey is another silent partner, and hell eventually breaks loose in a series of violent and tragic confrontations.
The film suffers from an overwrought narrative, with one melodramatic event after another. Not helping matters is Shea's tendency to indulge his actors, allowing them scenery-chewing histrionics that only accentuates the material's excesses.
Still, there's much raw talent on display, with Donnie Wahlberg matching brother Mark in terms of macho appeal and unforced naturalism and promising talents McGowan and Cummings providing equally vivid performances. Shea has a small role as Danny's cop cousin and underplays nicely. Lawrence Tierney, playing the local mob boss (who else?), provides his usual potent, noirish presence.
The film is most effective in its depiction of the insular world that the characters inhabit, with generous dashes of local color evocatively captured by Allen Baker's cinematography. The well-chosen soundtrack, featuring world and Celtic music as well as rap, adds greatly to the overall ambience.
SOUTHIE
Prophecy Pictures
Director: John Shea
Screenplay: John Shea, James Cummings, David McLaughlin
Producers: Hugh Wilson, Bill McCutchen, James Cummings, Michael Butler
Executive producers: Donnie Wahlberg, Carder Stout, Ron Habakus
Director of photography: Allen Baker
Editor: Tracy Granger
Music: Wayne Sharpe
Color/stereo
Cast:
Danny: Donnie Wahlberg
Kathy: Rose McGowan
Joey: James Cummings
Mrs. Quinn: Anne Meara
Colie: Lawrence Tierney
Davey: Robert Wahlberg
Jimmy: Steve Koslowski
Marianne: Amanda Peet
Whitey: Will Arnett
Will: Josh Marchette
Peter: John Shea
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/5/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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