Oh my. This is so bad in so many ways. It may qualify for my list of worst film experiences I have ever had, and that's quite an achievement. Its not only bad, its a huge investment.
Sure, the production values are poor and the acting is quite literally at the Ed Wood level. But we forgive those shortcomings in other projects that have life. That's supposed to be supplied here by our spunky heroine who redeems herself. There's supposed to be some narrative folding here: the story is about a story-telling organization, a magazine company, that reinvents itself as the woman who is doing the reinventing reinvents herself.
She previously was a spoiled rich girl, incapable of a real relationship. Well, it could have worked, but what we have here is a personal reinvention because she says so.
Why did I waste so many hours of my shortening life on this drek? Because it is a nominally folded project that has Julianne Moore in it.
There are many filmmakers that I follow, but very few actors and she's one. There's a very special quality a few actresses have. It may not matter to many others, this quality, but I find it fascinating. Its the ability to enhance a self-referential narrative by assuming a dual persona: the character of course plus some other dimension that observes, mirrors or annotates that character. It creates an intimacy between the viewer and the film, placing the actress partially in the role of storyteller as well as token.
Its a skill that is much discussed in certain circles, and indeed in late 91, a small group of like-minded actors met to develop their skills in this direction. These workshops became quite famous, coalescing on Checkov projects. In '93 they were talked into an extremely folded film, producing something you really must see: "Vanya on 42nd Street." That experience sent our Julianne into the world of intelligent film, where for five years she was our most interesting and intelligent actress. Then around five years ago, she started to waver. The reason could simply be weariness, appreciation of the costs, or investing in a relationship that she didn't want to risk.
But the question still matters a bit about what she was like before those appreciated workshops?
As it happens, she's in this project in a very minor role. She plays an actress, which in later times she would have wrestled into value in spite of the lunkheads around her. She doesn't. For some reason during this part of her career she tried to play the pretty girl only. Eyes, smile twinkling. Its as lackluster as what surrounds her.
What a transformation, from a nobody to a somebody, apparently through the sort of reinvention this movie thinks about but doesn't accomplish. But she did, and I suppose we should celebrate what we have.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
