Verdade Nua

I saw the movie today at the 2nd showing of the Toronto International Film Festival.... The movie will be released in Canada in the way that I had seen it today, uncensored and uncut.

The scene in question isn't explicit at all, well the part that the MPAA is crying about that implies that one of the characters as being homosexual, there's no full frontal male nudity, a lot of female nudity from Alison Lohman, Rachael Blanchard, and Kristin Adams there is some interaction between Lohman and Adams but it is done tastefully..

So again, if it doesn't get played in your market and you can get to Canada go see the movie....

I was engrossed by the premise. Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and a dead girl in a bathtub. To see Firth and Bacon go through the steps of a sort of Jerry Lewis Dean Martin routine was, in itself, reason enough to see the movie. On top of that, a director like Egoyan. I was hooked but immediately, regrettably unhooked every time Alison Lohman opened her mouth. Who could possibly believe it? That character should exude intelligence other than sensual vibes. Miss Lohman doesn't exude either and makes the whole premise collapse. Imagine a young Jodie Foster or now Natalie Portman or even Rachel McAdams in those shoes. That was a pivotal part The whole believability of the premise depended on her. Because of her performance I saw the cracks in everyone else's performance. So the experience, for me, was a series of exhilarating rushes and disappointing stops. Who said that casting was 90% responsible for the success of a film?. Whoever said it was right. Here the truth lies at the feet of a casting director and of a director for casting.

Atom Egoyan is one of my most trusted directors. He never disappoints me even when I'm not totally taken by the film. This is a perfect example of that. I loved it and hated it, all at the same time. Everything works and nothing works. Bacon and Firth couldn't be better as the Martin and Lewis, boy and girl act and yet...I didn't quite believe it. Good as they are they're not heavyweights and in my modest opinion the parts required heavyweights. I was sucked in though and enthralled by some extraordinary Egoyanesque moments with David Lynchish touches here and there. I believe the film was a flop at the box office, naturally. Too much of an adult story that demands not only full attention but participation from its audience. I will certainly see it again.

Warning: vague, minor spoilers. Not really, but hey better safe than sorry.

Here is a movie so delightful, messy, strange, sexy, and all together not quite there; that it makes me glad that films like it are still being made.

Egoyan soaks the film with a shining visual flare, and the characters leap off screen demanding to be fantastic. With such flamboyant settings, people, and actions, casting is absolutely critical. This is where Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth are invaluable and perfect. They are so famous, so flamboyant on their own and so well known that we are drawn into this story right along with Karen. And let's face it, they are all sexuality, with evil and lies boiling just beneath the surface. This is that rare kind of film that does justice to a phrase like that which is usually written on the cover but not delivered in the movie.These men carry their own persona into the film, and deliver just the right amount of insanity and insecurity. Watch Bacon's Lanny yell at a waiter for bringing lobster to the Jewish Lanny. Watch Firth's Vince stumble away from Lanny and Maureen reeling with rejection and sexual confusion. Watch Lanny lean over and kiss Vince's cheek while they perform high. The movie could have been all style and intrigue and little substance; but since Egoyan is directing, the sexual scenes are handled deeply, the drugs are films in full glory, and poignancy creeps in through cracks of the story.

Alison Lohman, who was SO good in the vastly underrated "Matchstick Men" has a good part here as a young journalist still somewhat infatuated with Lanny and Vince's famous duo. For me, her performance is the only one that never really takes off and leaves the screen, but I still went along with her character Karen, and it is not a serious or terribly noticeable flaw, simply a slight mismatching of actress to character; all though perhaps I find Karen a bit weaker and smarter than the other characters and no actress could have changed that.

Some quotes are a bit "bookish" and take us out of the movie for a moment, but even them I found working excellently. Bacon's voice-over in particular drips with confident malevolence. He has a speech on what he sees in Maureen's eyes in a key moment, that at first seems ridiculous and distant, but had me coming back and appreciating it more and more.

Overall, if you like the looks of the film/story/trailer/or even cover, it certainly delivers, and you will love it. The combination of drugs, mystery, lies, murder, fame, bisexuality, more drugs, more sex, and above all, Egoyan's flashy but confident directing, is stunning.

Not perfect, but a wild ride about manipulation, consequences, fame, and sex.

Egoyan's weakest film, at least since he came to prominence with Exotica. It's actually a somewhat interesting mystery, but it has a lot of flaws. There is a death, possibly a murder, in the hotel suite of two famous comedians (played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon), based on Martin and Lewis. That's the film's biggest flaw, that this completely fictional mystery uses Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as a model. It's very distracting. The bulk of the story has a young journalist (Alison Lohman) writing the story of the two comedians, trying to solve the mystery. The film-making is pretty good, but Egoyan, except for The Sweet Hereafter, has always been a weak director when it comes to actors. Lohman, who was great in Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men, is awful here (she does get naked and have sex with a woman, though, which makes the film almost worth seeing). Kevin Bacon, who gave his best performance ever last year in the still underseen The Woodsman, isn't especially good, either. Only Firth does a good job. The film is also overscored with some very cliché mystery music. Mychael Danna's scores for Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter were brilliant; this one's a flop.