Lost Holiday

It's funny, yet poignant. The acting, particularly the male and female leads, is terrific. The writing is taut and clever.

Poorly constructed. Poorly acted. Poorly written. Filled with BS identity politics. The direction is none existent. AND the screen quality looks like this was made on Super8 and blown up for the big screen.

In all it's amateur night. And boring as all hell.

This film looks like it was made with the disposable version of movie cameras or maybe it's just a 1.2 megapixel video recorder, either way the quality is atrocious. The sound doesn't fare much better, it is equally disappointing, and to keep it all in the same spirit, so is the script and the acting. All the positive reviews are probably from people that know the people in the film, but very unlikely to be impartial. Waste of time.

I'm really only rating this as the other reviewers were high? I see many of the points the other 6 at the time of writing reviews had to make, but just no. No. The 77 minutes dragged and dragged, and my guess at around 15 minutes in that it had lost it's way proved too true, Crowning glory the quick narration of what had gone on in case viewers too stupid? Good lord.

LOST HOLIDAY is a French New Wave-style screwball detective story...imagine BAND OF OUTSIDERS meets THE THIN MAN...or maybe more on the nose: MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY for Millennials. (Sorry, that's probably too trite, I know.)

Kate Lyn Sheil gives yet another masterful performance as a completely original female character we've never seen on screen before (Nicole Holofcener should write something for KLS immediately). And she's match perfectly with the churlish Thomas Matthews...in a truly platonic, trope-defying relationship that lives in the chemistry of actual BFFs...again, something that wouldn't even occur to a lesser filmmaker.

The rest of the cast is a who's who of "that guys"...faces you might not expect to see in a low budget affair like LOST HOLIDAY (or in a movie at all: David Corn?!). Each bringing a fresh energy to the proceedings: William Jackson Harper as the love lost, Allie Gallerani as his impossibly perfect fiance, Ismenia Mendes as the entitled victim of circumstance...I really can't say enough for the performances co-directors Thomas and Michael Matthews get out of these folks.

Look, LOST HOLIDAY may not be your thing. There is certainly an anarchist spirit to the film-at least in the way the brothers Matthews insist on both honoring and subverting the genre...sometimes within the same scene-that can make an audience member feel like maybe they aren't in on the joke. But still...by doggedly holding on to this fresh and unusual vision, this isn't a film you won't want to miss.