13 Conversations About One Thing

My wife and I launched immediately into a conversation about this film before the end credits had even finished rolling. It's the kind of film that makes you want to apply some of its ideas and themes to your own life and experiences.

At first I was worried. When the film began, I thought it was going to be an episodic experimental piece, with 13 different scenes each dealing with an aspect of happiness. This bothered me, because the first segment of the film left me wanting more of the same story and I would have been disappointed if the screenplay had never come back to it. However, the first few segments that seem at first to be unrelated begin to mesh in a fluid way (but never in a way that feels forced), and what happens in one begins to illuminate the actions and feelings in another.

Because of it's episodic nature, the actors don't get a lot of room to flesh out their characters, but the performances are still strong. Alan Arkin is especially good (he always is).

This one comes highly recommended.

Grade: A-

This is divided into sections each about an aphorism. Lawyer Troy (Matthew McConaughey) is celebrating a win at a bar with his colleagues. Then he hits a pedestrian and decides to drive off. Walker (John Turturro) is a physics professor who is cheating on his wife Patricia (Amy Irving) and she suspects him. Beatrice (Clea DuVall) is a maid but her sweet blissful nature is shaken after getting run over by Troy. Gene (Alan Arkin) is a cynical insurance claims manager with family problems and bitter at his happy co-worker.

There are interesting stories and good performances. The cast is amazing. It aspires to be philosophically deep and meaningful. The meandering nature of the story telling leaves me wondering if the movie is actually saying anything. The rotating characters do not allow the tension to build. It needs to rebuild every 15 minutes. I wonder if the movie would be a lot better following one character and dropping the philosophical pretense.

What a great film. The ties between these disparate stories are wondrously woven, and the sudden eye-opening twists are amazing. The spare music is a perfect backdrop. The acting is marvelous, with Amy Irving as the neglected wife of the melancholy professor and Alan Arkin playing the driven and lugubrious businessman with lots of problems and. I hardly realized who it was until halfway through the movie. I would compare this movie to other great art movies such as My Dinner With Andre, My Brilliant Career, Days of Heaven. It evoked in me similar emotions. If you are feeling down and want a big lift, I highly recommend this wonderful film. It deserves an 8 out of 10.

This is most definitely not my first choice of genres, but still I thought this film was pretty good. The film is a little slow, but it's quite interesting in the end. The characters in the film are really quite interesting and even at the end of the film I wanted to know what else happened to the characters.

The acting was good on all accounts, Matthew McConaughey, John Tuturro, Clea DuVall and Alan Arkin all did a fantastic jobs and I really liked all of their characters quite a bit.

Even though, I liked the film I wouldn't recommend this to everyone. It's pretty much just a movie about a bunch of people and the things that happen in their lives. I kind of found the movie to be a lot like "Playing By Heart", so if you liked that film, you may like this film. I hope you enjoy the film. Thanks for reading,

-Chris

The lawyer Troy (Matthew McConaughey), the actuary Gene (Alan Arkin), the physical science professor Walker (John Turturro) and the housecleaner Beatrice (Clea DuVall) have their lives connected through some sort of event. Troy meets Gene in a bar, hits Beatrice on the street and due to the accident, decides to sell his car to Walker. Through this non-chronological connection line, the viewer participates of their personal dramas, all of them relative to happiness and how unpredictable life is. In a moment, each character has a moment of happiness or expectation of a good event in his life, which is changed later due to some unexpected occurrence. The question is `Can we be happy in a world where our destiny is governed by uncertainties?' This movie is a very bitter and profound story about happiness and unpredictability of life. I saw this movie yesterday on cable television and my vote in IMDB User Rating was seven. However, I intend to see this film again (maybe on DVD) and reevaluate my review. I was not aware of the theme of this complex and almost unpleasant story and maybe my first impression was unfair. The direction and the performance of the cast are outstanding, highlighting the acting of the (always) excellent Alan Arkin.

Title (Brazil): `Treze Visões' (`Thirteen Visions')