Unmade Beds

Unmade Beds (1997) was written and directed by Nicholas Barker. The basic concept of the film is interesting--find four unmarried New Yorkers, and follow their lives for nine months. All of them want to get married, or to form some lasting relationship, but none of them is succeeding.

The problem with the movie is that all four of the people aren't really people you would want to know, let alone love. One man is arrogant--he won't date "mutts," although he certainly isn't a perfect 10. One man is 5 feet 4 inches tall, and that's a problem in our society. However, he doesn't do much to make himself interesting in a way that would attract women.

One woman is narcissistic. She calls herself "The Sexy Italian." She has no problem demonstrating to us what she considers the outstanding and also the problem parts of her body. She's a chronic shoplifter, and does drugs. Her goal is to enter a relationship in which she trades her body for money.

One woman is whiny. She's very overweight, but when her friend suggests that she try to lose weight, she almost bites her head off. (In fact, the friend is the only person on screen towards whom I could feel any warmth.)

Only 20 years have passed since the film was made, but, in the context of searching for a partner, our society has changed quite a bit. That's especially true about dating ads. In 1997, the basic wide search for a mate took place in the personal ad columns of newspapers and magazines. Computer dating services existed, but they appeared pretty primitive compared to what we have today.

A dating coach tells one of the men to buy a dog, because dogs are "people magnets." OK, but once the magnet has worked, where do you go from there when you have no personality?

If the four people had something attractive about them, we could feel sorry for their lack of partners. However, this film gives us no one to care about. What's the point of a voyeuristic movie if there's really nothing to see?

We saw this film on the small screen, and it worked well. I'm surprised that it has a respectable 6.9 IMDb rating. I think it's a terrible movie, and can't recommend it.

I disagree with Kobenhavn. But I produced the movie, so why wouldn't I? Let me point out the film played for 5 months in one theater in New York, 2 months in theaters in San Francisco and Chicago, and received rave reviews from nearly every important critic. "Fascinating and highly original…on all counts, one of the most interesting films this year". (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). "One of the most original films of the year". (David Denby, New York Magazine). "Sharp, funny, sad, haunting, fascinating, Lurid, and voyeuristic". (Owen Gliberman, Entertainment Weekly). And so on.

Whether the story is entirely true or in some parts made up, as the director stated it is, is unimportant; the film covers the intriguing subject matter of how four single New Yorkers exist for a period of nine months, featuring the real lives of two female and two male actors who play themselves, concerned with getting older and still being single. Their single scene is provocatively portrayed as being sad and luridly comical. It is a film that highlights the problems that can be found in urban areas across America, as we bear witness to the plight of these singles trying to search for a mate through the internet and the personals, faced with agonizing loneliness and unresolved psychological problems. That these four are not particularly people that I can readily sympathize with, does not alter the fact that this is a very human story being told, one that has many implications on our culture, relating how alienated a people so many of us have become in this modern world.

This has just taken over from the Blair Witch Project as the most terrifying movie i've ever seen. And just like it, you come away thinking, 'Could it be real?'.

My answer? Surely not. Such pure dating horror couldn't exist in the world I live in. That's what I keep saying to myself anyway, and it helps me get to sleep most nights.

Four NY singles come across as some of the most unrelentingly relationship-resistant types to ever appear on screen. Their dances with romances seem forever doomed and watching them crash and burn through a few apparently real months in their lives will strike terror into the hearts of singles of any age. Is it a comedy? A satire? All I can say for sure is that it's surely one of the worst ever first date films I can conceive of.

Compelling viewing for the rest of us though.

Filmmaker Barker found four very different losers-in-love in the personal ads and got to know them for months, writing a script based on their personalities and experiences. He then filmed it as if it were a traditional documentary, with the people playing themselves.

The characters are always interesting, if all sad, and often pathetic as well as pathetically funny.

Sometimes it feels exploitational – don't these people know how sad, and sometimes crazy they come off? Yet there's something that feels like these people consciously chose to be seen for who they were, warts and all. Better that than continue to exist in the lonely hole of obscurity.

And a simple visual touch at the very end puts a slightly more empathetic, less cruel spin on the film.

I couldn't quite love it, but I respect it's bravery in trying something new, its dark humor, and its unblinking eye. But I suspect an unmanipulated documentary might have been even more powerful. Here, we're never sure how deeply to hurt for these people, or how awful or cruel to feel at laughing at them, because we don't know when what we're seeing is 'true' – which makes for interesting debates about 'reality', but also creates a bit of emotional disconnect. But just a bit