What Happened Was...

Tom Noonan's excellent play describes two lonely, damaged people trying to connect, and in the process dark secrets emerge. The only hope for these people is that however difficult, by confronting the demons their respective pasts hold for them, a chance of an honest relationship becomes possible. Kudos to Noonan for keeping the delicious tension new relationships have by his treatment of the ending.

Stay with it. It's worth the time.

This movie may not appeal to all people (as I see from another comment) but was a great, biting, black movie with A+ dialogue. It brings you into the lives of two people, who are not all they appear to be. Tom Noonan is a brilliant screen writer. It is a one-room setting, like a play, but reels you in regardless (like Lifeboat). If you don't appreciate dialogue and the idiosyncrasies of human nature, you will not appreciate this movie.

Tom Noonan and Karen Sillas portray a disaffected NYC couple- co-workers who are now on a dinner date.

Tom Noonan is somewhat menacing and unpredictable. Interesting presence. (You may recall him from "Manhunter"). Basically, the film develops as the two discuss their jobs(which they hate) but they have other projects in the works, Sillas published a children's book.

Tom Noonan portrays an Ivy League graduate, working as a paralegal who is both amused and disgusted by the attorneys at the firm. He is defensive about why he works at said firm, and Sillas finds him interesting, saying he must have some grand plan to get revenge on the attorneys at the firm.

The only somewhat nebulous plot point is where Sillas reads the "children's book" she has written, which turns out to be quite violent. I will not spoil it for those who have not yet seen this movie, but suffice it to say, it is very strange.

All in all an entertaining film, about alienation and dating in NYC, which has a creative distinction- it is one film in the past ten years that does NOT try to imitate Woody Allen!. 8/10

***SPOILERS*** " What Happened Was" is a story about hurt and loneliness in the big city and how it effects two people Michael & Jackie Tom Noonan & Karen Sillas, who are co-workers at a big NYC law firm.

Michael is a paralegal and Jackie is an executive assistant as they both spend what at first seems to be a quite evening dinner at Jackie's apartment that leads to an emotional explosion which exposes the mask that they've been wearing at their job all these years. Jackie really likes Michael very much and finds in him the reason for her to get up every morning and go to work. Single like Michael she as well as him want to have a relationship to put a wedge between the loneliness that they both feel but living as they do in a major modern metropolis in a way forces them not to be themselves.

Michael is far more deluded then Jackie, who's more down to earth and honest about herself, in him thinking that he's a big time social activist who's writing a book, that he tells Jackie took him fifteen years to write, about the law profession and how it hurts those that it deals with. Michael in fact is really a very insecure young man afraid of facing life and thus losing himself in a fantasy world that he created for himself inside his living room watching TV shows mostly on the Discovery Channel. It comes as a great shock to Michael's ego when Jackie shows him a children book that she wrote that was published unlike his imaginary work on social injustice.

Throughout the entire film Jackie does what she can to loosen Michael up, with almost an entire bottle of wine, and in the end he does seem to come out of his shell and really starts to get it on with Jackie. Still his insecurity keeps him from really being responsive to her feelings about him and it's that reaction that leaves Jackie in tears as she feels she made a fool of herself trying to get Michael to fall in love with her like she's with him.

Michael is finally brought down to earth when he realizes how he hurt Jackie with his overwhelming sense of self-importance. Michael's clumsy attempt to make things right after he tried to leave her just as Jackie thought he would stay over night left her with a sense of outraged. It's then that she tells Michael just what she thought of him, this after how she felt all this time about him, and how he was the only person to make her happy in the office that they both worked at. That revelation by Jackie hit Michael so hard that for once he opens up to her and is honest about himself, not at first realizing her feelings that she had for him, and tries to make amends for what he, unconsciously, put her through that evening.

Heart-felt and moving film about how people have trouble connecting with each other and how two people who worked and were friends for years at the job together are like fish out of water and strangers when they meet and try to start up a serious relationship out of the workplace.

This movie is certainly NOT for everyone. And I would whole heartedly agree with people who feel mislead by the cover of the videotape because it doesn't create any idea of what the movie is. What the movie is, is a very finely crafted film much like "My Dinner With Andre" but much more somber. The layers of these characters peel off as they become more and more comfortable with each other and it creates for an almost voyeristic feel that lends the movie an immediate impact credibility. This movie is reflective of how many, many people interact and present themselves as something they are not and how fragile people can really be. We see and work with people every day who could be lost souls, lonely hearts, broken egos etc.....and this movie simply reminds us that not everyone is what they seem and that the world is full of lost, lonely people. Obviously not a subject that lends itself to the average movie-goer but if you like outstanding writing and want to see what can be done with TRULY indepenent movies, this is the movie for you. I HIGHLY recommend it to literate movie fans.