The Good Night

Saw the world premiere showing of the Good Night at the Sundance Film Festival last week and have come to report back on my findings. Was really looking forward to this one, story sounded interesting in an Eternal Sunshine kinda way, and the cast is top notch. The Good Night stars Martin Freeman as former brit pop star Gary, who hasn't exactly been doing a whole lot since his famed band went on the skids. Gary lives a less then fulfilling life with his long time girlfriend Dora, played by the excellent Gywenth Paltrow, and keeps company with successful ex bandmate Paul, played by the hilarious Simon Pegg. Gary spends his days doing meaningless commercial gigs in which his creative talents are kept in check in order to create more familiar music that sounds like the theme from "Cheers". Understandably Gary needs an outlet from his less then stellar career and from his almost non-existent relationship with Dora. One night Garys finds that outlet in his dreams, more specifically in the perfect female form played by Penelope Cruz. Desperate to escape reality Gary finds himself wanting more to live in his sleeping life then in his real life and he finds an unusual guide in Mel, played by Danny Devito. Mel mentors Gary on this lucid dreaming and soon Gary finds himself mastering his dreams, but in reality his good nights are turning into bad days.

Sounds interesting but does it work, well not so much. Much like a dream the story is scatter shot and incomplete. We only get a glimpse into the characters lives and as the story goes along we still don't have a lot of info here. Does Gary want to be a pop star again, is he jealous of the success of his friend, does he really care about his girlfriend - did he ever and whats so special about his dream girl? Gary is as lost in life as he is on the audience, he feels distant as do most of the characters here, aside from the amusing Paul. In the end this movie just doesn't quite work out, maybe it wasn't supposed just like a dream. All that being said its a nice first movie by Jake Paltrow, he's got a good vision and his effort here is obviously promising but frankly the story was beneath his directing talents. As for the actors, Martin Freeman, Gywenth, Devito - all very good work but again the story just is so-so and the acting can't save that. The Good Night, just a decent night at the movies

The Good Night (2007)

Gwyneth's brother directs a curious but strained movie featuring both Gwyneth Paltrow as the real world lead and Penelope Cruz as some kind of vixen of the lead men's dreams. Now you might wonder what leading man Martin Freeman has wrong with him that he gets to sleep with his wife, played by Gwyneth, and yet he dreams of this other, Latina, woman. This is so filled with simplistic male fantasy, with stereotypes of ethnic types and gender roles, it's sometimes painful.

Most of the time you can, hopefully, gloss over this and see pure cleverness (in the footsteps of The Science of Sleep 2006) and layers of reality (a pale version of any Kaufman film like Eternal Sunshine (2004) or the more recent Synecdoche, New York). In fact, you might see the use of the woman's face in advertising as an echo of Red (1994). I guess I'm struggling to find the originality here, which I'm sure is meant to hold it all together.

Martin Freeman is likable but a little milquetoast for me, as the locus of the whole movie. Cruz is a relief in leather (the white fur on the beach scenes are total gag me clichés, even as clichéd dreams). I rather like Paltrow the sister as an actress when she is the normal young woman, which she is, but it does force the script to rise up and make their normal coupleness vivid, or trenchant, or comic. It is only slightly two of these. The fourth main character in spurts, besides the caricature that is Danny DeVito, is Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead fame), who is really a great presence, stealing his scenes.

Do I say see this movie? Only if there are some aspects here, and some influences, that are up your alley. It's not horrible at all, a kind of back-handed something to say without just saying it tries too hard.

The idea is interesting enough. A musician in his thirties suffers from a major dip in his career and his relationship. But instead of addressing these problems, and have a serious talk with his girlfriend, the main character is more interested in explaining his childish dreams of a hot brunette. I didn't feel gripped for one minute by the story. And at the end, we are supposed to believe that Gary has surmounted his problems because the dreamgirl has said she for one believes in him. He composes a piano tune, gets one more chance from his girlfriend, and that's that. By the way, why has Paltrow used the documentary form? Was there anything to make a documentary about? The guy broke his leg, for heaven's sake. That's not to say there's nothing enjoyable about this film, but it's very little. It's okay if director's debut doesn't smash box office records or win three Palms in Venice. But Paltrow should dig deeper into his subject before making any other movie at all. No matter how good your cast is (and it's pretty decent), without good ideas, any film is bound to disappoint.

I'm still not completely sure what this movie was exactly about. The initial layer suggests a story about an insecure bloke who tries to escape his run aground life through lucid dreaming. Real life and the dream world coincide as he finds out that the woman he is pushing away from his life is actually the one he wants to stay with. People trying to dig beyond this layer have some difficulty. Not because this movie is especially deep but simply because there's not much beyond it period.

Do movies have to be deep or insightful? Of course they don't. But this one to me suggested it may become that. And when it didn't, it left me feel a bit dissatisfied.

With an interesting story nonetheless, solid acting throughout, some great jokes and appealing visuals this movie rises well above the average Hollywood production. What it simply lacks are some really poignant scenes and build up towards the end. But just like the main character Gary who never rises above himself, the movie doesn't either. But maybe that was the whole point.

That said, there's absolutely no harm in bringing this one home for a view.

7/10

It's pretty obvious that first-time director/screenwriter Jake Paltrow was heavily inspired by Michel Gondry's surreal, off-kilter work in "The Science of Sleep" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" in making this downbeat 2007 dramedy. Barely in theaters before heading right to DVD, the film works on an intriguing (albeit unoriginal) premise but is then undermined by a muddy execution and unlikable characters despite some nice visuals. The plot concerns put-upon Gary, a TV commercial jingle writer who was once an '80's Britpop star. His professional life has become a drudge as he begrudgingly works with his best pal and former bandmate Paul, who has sold his soul to become a successful advertising executive. Meanwhile, life at home is no picnic since Gary has to suffer from the constant passive-aggressive derision of his frumpy, needling girlfriend Dora.

Into this emotional void, Gary starts to have vivid dreams of a beautiful fantasy woman named Anna, who turns out to have a basis in reality. It's no wonder that Gary seeks the counsel of a "lucid dreaming" expert from New Jersey named Mel who helps him find ways to elongate the dreams for fear of having them evaporate entirely. Once all this is all established, Paltrow lets the film flail around in a series of frustrating scenes that have Gary turning more and more into an emotional zombie. Moreover, the marked contrast between Dora and Anna comes across as overstated with the result being complete indifference toward both women. Paltrow also uses a framing device of documentary-like testimonials from colleagues in Gary's past, a technique that doesn't make sense until the abrupt ending. None of the principal actors are terribly remarkable here except Simon Pegg ("Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz") who brings a much-needed energetic brio to the comically unsavory role of Paul. His cutting scenes with Gary are the best the movie offers.

As Gary, Martin Freeman (BBC's "The Office", "Breaking and Entering") is likeably dweeby at first, though he doesn't make credible his past as a debauched rock star. Danny DeVito merely plays a plot device in his customary matter and not much more as Mel. No matter how gorgeous she is (and she truly is in this film), Penélope Cruz is given short shrift by the script, so much so that her character remains incoherent and incomplete. But ironically, a worse fate befalls the filmmaker's famous sister Gwyneth, who has been so deglamorized as Dora as to render her character nearly unsalvageable. Granted there are some funny, off-the-cuff bits like Dora reacting to Gary's maniacal installation of foam over the bedroom windows by asking if it comes in white or Gary inexplicably reading "The Idiot's Guide to Understanding Iraq" in bed, but there isn't enough such cleverness to sustain the film. At 93 minutes, it actually feels overlong. The 2008 DVD provides a rather inchoate commentary from Jake Paltrow that is not very insightful.