The Longest Week

There's nothing wrong, per se, with focusing one's camera and script firmly on the woes and heartaches of the filthy-rich. Indeed, some of the world's most revered film-makers have done so with remarkable success - Woody Allen and Wes Anderson have crafted charming, quirky and emotional films revolving firmly around characters with far too much money and not enough good sense. But creating empathy for hyper-privileged characters is a delicate affair, one that writer-director Peter Glanz - making the move from commercials to movies - more or less fluffs up in The Longest Week. The final film, evidently influenced by Allen, Anderson and copious amounts of offbeat French cinema, struggles to free itself from the quirky artifice that should disguise - and not constitute - the depth of his story and characters.

Conrad Valmont (Jason Bateman) lives a life of leisure and laziness within the comfortable surroundings of a Manhattan hotel belonging to his parents. As a job, he professes to be writing, although he is unlikely to ever complete, his great American novel. His splendid life is rudely disrupted when his parents decide to divorce - and neither father nor mother is willing to keep paying for Conrad's profligate lifestyle. Suddenly, he finds himself out on the street: a situation he temporarily addresses by moving into the swanky apartment belonging to his best friend, Dylan (Billy Crudup). Conrad also winds up making a move on Beatrice (Olivia Wilde), the smart, kooky model who has enjoyed a courtly, mutual flirtation with Dylan for quite some time.

Plot-wise, that's pretty much it. Newly-poor boy meets pretty girl, boy pretends to still be rich, girl falls for it, boy exploits friends (from Dylan to his long-serving, long-suffering butler) to continue his ruse, repeat ad nauseum. It's a narrative that requires considerable skill and sensitivity to pull off, because it could so easily come off as a vapid film glorifying the silly, fickle whims of the rich and fancy. There's no doubt some satire at work here (the title gives a hint as to the length of Conrad's suffering), but it's so blunt that it winds up getting lost in the rest of the film's excesses. In fact, Glanz frequently trades it in for a lot of indie/art-house accoutrements: take, for instance, the way in which it's impossible to quite set a date or time to the film's romanticised version of Manhattan, the almost deliberately French scene in which Conrad and Beatrice dance in a bar in New York, or the Andersonian title cards introducing different segments of the film.

The odd thing is how Glanz both benefits from and wastes his very good cast. On paper, Bateman is perfect for the part of Conrad: he's played a disinherited heir before on TV's Arrested Development, and has bucketloads of personal charm as an actor that could help make Conrad more palatable to audiences. To some extent, that's what Bateman does in practice. The writing keeps him from making Conrad truly sympathetic, but he gets the audience to care a little more when his character meanders into some truly dark places. Even so, it's hard to shake the feeling that - under Glanz's direction - Bateman is miscast. Wilde is charming as the Austen-obsessed Beatrice, but her character really represents little more than a reward for the two men of the story. Crudup, meanwhile, is at his most personable in the film, but Dylan, too, is more an afterthought than a fully-fledged character - both to Conrad and his own creator.

To be perfectly fair, The Longest Week never promises anything like depth. In fact, Glanz makes several pointed comments within the film about Conrad's immutably shallow nature. But, if a film really wants us to accept that its entire plot will do so little to affect its main character (and Conrad does change, albeit in very small ways), the journey has to be worth it. That's where the film falls short. It spends too much time enamoured of its own design and concept. In effect, Glanz transports his characters into a meticulously-crafted, quaintly ageless version of New York, but fails to really make them come to life in a meaningful way.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a terrible movie. It's beautifully filmed and well acted, but it's just ultimately unsatisfying. I didn't mind passing an evening watching on Amazon Prime, but I wouldn't have been happy if I'd spent money for it in a theater.

The movie starts out with Bateman, as Conrad, laying out his privileged upper class problems to his therapist - played by Tony Roberts! And if that wasn't enough, the soundtrack launches into some New Orleans Jazz to remove any doubt who they're playing homage to here.

Of course, Jason Bateman's handsome and well spoken character would certainly be the *villain* in any Manhattan-era Woody Allen films, but that's just one of this movie's many problems.

Stylistically, the movie is unabashedly influenced by Wes Anderson. Roberts becomes the narrator, and the movie is divided into storybook style chapters, with occasional amusing cutaways.

On the other hand, the plot is lifted from another movie; namely, "A New Leaf" (1971), written and directed by Elaine May, and starring Walter Mathau. Mathau plays a spoiled rich playboy who has burned through his entire inheritance, and now must find a way to.get through life broke, which is basically the same plot as this movie. May's version is a classic. This, not so much.

Both Allen and Anderson have a real genius for portraying deeply flawed characters in a sympathetic way, and that's where this movie falls short. Jason Bateman is inherently likable, but at some point, you realize you're giving him credit for other characters he's played. As Conrad, he's shallow, self-centered, whiny, and just basically annoying.

Without giving away any spoilers, if you're expecting any great self-realization or epiphany, you'll be disappointed. The movie just meanders its way to one of the absolute laziest endings I've ever scene. Indeed, a critical plot point comes and goes so quickly that I initially missed it, and had to go back because I was totally confused.

I've waited a long time to see a film like this. A simple story, beautifully shot with an enchanting soundtrack. Like others, I'm now completely turned off by the big budget, green screen, CGI 'blockbusters' that now seem to infest our theatres (cinemas), and was delighted to just sit back and let this quiet little story wash over me.

The neo-retro cinematography turned New York into Paris and the design had the men smart and dapper and the women beautifully Hepburnesque, I loved it all and it was only topped by the husky piano jazz soundtrack.

I won't go into the acting, depth of plot and character, who's films it resembles or whatever subliminal message was supposed to be projected, others have very kindly furnished that information. Suffice to say the leads were all impossibly good looking (of they were, they're actors) but not as good as their surroundings, New York has never looked so enticing.

So, this film won't win any awards for supreme cleverness or anything but if you're after something to romance your eyes and ears then you'll find its 80 minutes time well spent.

Without Olivia Wilde, this would be absolutely unwatchable. It wants to be Goddardian and early Woody Allenesk, but it's lack of character development and its weak dialogue not to mention it being devoid of any philosophical or social commentary take it nowhere. Perhaps if Crudup had had the lead and Batemen wasn't cast at all, the acting would have made it more compelling?

"Sometimes you're your own worst enemy." Conrad (Bateman) is forty and still living off his parents. He has no ambition in life and is content living in a hotel that he doesn't have to pay for. When his friend introduces him to his newest girlfriend, Beatrice (Wilde), Conrad falls in love. When his parents decide to separate Conrad is cut off and now he has no job, no place to live and is in love with his best friends girl. I am a huge Jason Bateman fan so I was excited to watch this. While I can't say this is a bad movie I can say it was a little slow and somewhat generic. It may be because I watch so many movies but about 15 minutes in I predicted what would happen, and I was right. That said, the movie isn't terrible but I was hoping for something a little better. Overall, not terrible but pretty predictable, generic and slow moving. I expected something better with Jason Bateman and Olivia Wilde. I give this a B-.