November

I saw this film on a whim. I had not great expectations for either the film or Courtney Cox, who I remembered as an airhead on Friends. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I was taken in within the first few minutes and spent my time trying to figure out what actually happened. I had several theories, but it was not until the end that the secret is revealed. My jaw dropped to the floor and I knew that I had seen a beautiful work of art. I had to watch it again to see if I could pick out the clues. There were very few. But it made perfect sense. Cox was wonderful! Her performance in this movie made a fan out of me. I cannot wait for her next dramatic role. The story, the directing, the cinematography as well as the acting are superb. I cannot recommend this movie any more than 'see it' Make up your own mind, but give it a chance. You will be amazed.

This definitely fits the "Diamonds in the Rough" category for me, and I hope others check it out. It stars Courteney Cox as Sophie, and James LeGros as her boyfriend Hugh. As the movie begins, they are on their way home from dinner at a restaurant, when Sophie stops the car at a corner grocery and asks Hugh to go in and get some snacks. After he is gone for a little while, the grocery is held up and three people are shot dead by the robber, including Hugh. This happens on November 7th, which is a very important date to the movie. Flash forward, and Sophie is talking to her shrink about her headaches, and the visions and flashbacks she is having. She teaches a photography class, and while showing slides in the class, a slide comes up of the corner grocery where the incident happened, with her car parked out front and her in it. This baffles her, and she calls in the police, who discover, she was the one that took the picture. hmmm, impossible you say, well not in this movie, because this is only one of three visits the movie makes to that fateful evening of November 7th, each with a different version of the actual events.

"November" was picked to play at the Sundance Film Festival, and won a few awards. It's a very low budget, shot in fifteen days on HD, and is almost a student film. The photography is awesome, with a cool soundtrack, and outstanding acting. Courteney Cox is not prettied up at all in this movie, and she reminds me so much of Margot Kidder. And I LOVE Margot Kidder. Not just in looks, because she at times is almost a dead ringer for Margot, but in her acting style too. This is a psychological thriller all the way, and some may figure this out way in advance, and others may be thoroughly confused. For me, it shows what up and coming filmmakers can do with little money, when the material they have to work with is high quality. I'm not suggesting you go out and buy this little gem, but certainly it's worth a rental. I liked it very much, and it comes with two commentaries, both very good. Check it out, if you get a chance. :)

Harrison's 'November' is quite an interesting piece of cinema. Shot with HD camera on a minimum budget, the film take us through the stages of of a young photographer's grief. But for whom is she grieving or who's death is she coming to terms with? That becomes apparent in the end. The movie's divided into three chapters: denial, despair and acceptance (stages of grief). The director presents hints through each stage as the truth slowly unfolds. Harrison's execution is quite simplistic in terms of technique. The visuals have a washed out look but are nonetheless intriguing. He uses a lot of symbolic elements, like the different gloomy colours in each segment, and a gloomy soundtrack. The entire film rests on Courteney Cox and she does an exceptional job. It's great to see her in a different role and the actress needs to do more movies. The supporting cast, that includes James LeGros and Anne Archer are very good. 'November' is quite a well made film. It is thought provoking and dark but many will dislike it most likely because of the theme. Many have complained that there is no plot but, in my opinion, I find that to be a ridiculous statement as the story (which I briefly mentioned earlier) is pretty obvious. Whether one likes it or not, I say 'November' is worth the watch.

Greg Harrison's November is one of those frustratingly opaque, reality bending sketchy thrillers where a metaphysical shudder is sent through someone's fabric of existence, in this case that of photography professor Courtney Cox. Driving home late one night, her husband (James LeGros) runs in to a Kwik-E-Mart to grab her a snack right at the same moment a burglar (Matthew Carey) brandishes a gun, and then open fires. After he's killed, you feel like the film is in for a run of the mill grieving process as she visits a therapist (Nora Dunn). Events take a detour down Twilight Zone alley though when a spooky photograph shows up amongst one of her student's portfolios, a snapshot of that very night at the store, apparently zoomed in on her husband. Who took it? Is the man actually dead? Will the film provide the concrete answers that some viewers so fervently salivate for in these types of films? Not really, as a heads up. As soon as things begin to get weird, they pretty much stay that way for the duration of the exceedingly short runtime (it clocks in under eighty minutes!). Cox's character revisits that fateful night from many different angles and impressions, either reliving it, recreating it or simply stuck in some sort of alternate time loop chain. There's a policeman played by Nick Offerman who offers little in the way of help, and she's left more or less on her own through this fractured looking glass of garbled mystic confusion. The tone and aesthetic of it are quite something though, a jerky, stark Polaroid style mood-board that evokes ones like The Jacket and Memento, with an art house industrial touch to the deliberately closeup, disoriented visuals. It's a bit maddening from the perspective of someone only looking for answers, and if that's why you came, you'll be left wringing your hands and losing sleep. If you enjoy the secrets left unravelled, and are a viewer who revels in unlocked mysteries left that way, recognizing the potent energies distilled from unexplained ambiguity, give it a go.

Impeccably designed and crafted psychological study appears at first to be in an artistic disarray, yet the filmmakers' strategy is very clever and they have put together an excellent--if brief--thriller about living in a state of limbo. A young photography teacher experiences a night in November within three different frameworks, each with much the same detail but a different outcome in the scenario. It's impossible to criticize the minutiae since the movie's agenda isn't made clear until the finish, but some of the plot-points can be frustrating (such as the photo of a mysterious hand under a market bin, or a police investigator carping about not getting a clear look at a convenience store robber when the store itself had four security cameras going). Nevertheless, the well-chosen cast, particularly Courteney Cox in the lead, is flawless and the mood music and arty cinematography--while at times overstated--is haunting. *** from ****