BEFORE: I've mapped out the rocky road to Valentine's Day and beyond, and for some reason, the path this year goes through Clive Owen. Both he AND Julia Roberts carry over from last night's film. Making up for another past movie sin tonight, since I got an Academy screener of this a few years back, and only watched a few scenes - you can probably guess which ones. It's all about context, though, and up until now I've had none.
THE PLOT: The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.
AFTER: The love triangle is a common plot device, but the love quadrangle (I wonder why people don't say "love square" - I guess it just don't sound right...) is less common. Unfortunately it carries the stigma of a writer showing off - hey, why stop there, why not pen a love pentangle or a love sextangle (nice double entendre) or a love octangle?
This was quite obviously a work originally written for the stage - it's got the feel of a Mamet-y talky talky piece, you can almost feel the stage exits and the spotlights as each character rises to prominence and then fades into the background.
But what about the content? Well, between America's sweetheart Julia Roberts dropping the f-bomb, along with other salty language, as well as a number of awkward and uncomfortable conversations as these two couples break up repeatedly and recombine, honestly it feels like stunt work - when you combine it with the casting of America's "other" sweetheart Natalie Portman as a stripper, it feels especially staged.
What's clear is that somebody, somewhere got their heart broken, and decided to write a play about damaged people who damage each other further. Sure, they're occasionally apologetic about it, but the damage is still done. Is it true to life? Possibly - it does examine those most personal and hurtful conversations that one might have after infidelity is exposed. And the balance between the horrible desire to know the details of the infidelity, and the impulse to block them out, run out the door and move on with one's life.
There's something here on a par with "The War of the Roses" - people being emotionally (and physically) cruel to each other, in graphic detail. But where that film over-explained the reasons for all the damage, this one under-explains. Almost every plot development here can be countered with a "but WHY?". "I cheated on you." (but WHY?) "I don't love you any more." (but WHY?) And if your characters can't answer these questions, what chance does the audience have? For all that's said and done in this movie, they really only scratch the surface.
I was terribly afraid during the first half-hour, because there's a huge time-jump during which one character writes an entire novel - for a while it seemed like there would be two timelines, present and past, and the film was going to toggle between them. It didn't - but that itself highlights a major problem here, all the best action seems to take place off-screen or in-between - and then later in the film there ARE some non-linear jumps, as we flashback to reveal what happened in-between the earlier scenes. Again - you're asking too much if you want me to re-assemble the timeline for you, since you apparently couldn't be bothered to edit (or write) the scenes in the proper order. Or you're just messing with me, which isn't cool either.
This film got some pretty horrible reviews, as I seem to recall - I think it got marketed all wrong, like some kind of romantic comedy, when it's nothing close to a feel-good film, it's all rather bleak. I can't recall one character laughing in this whole film, and only one scene where someone smiled.
Also starring Natalie Portman (last seen in "Heat") and Jude Law (last seen in "Road to Perdition") and really, no one else - I've rarely seen a feature film with only 6 cast members...
RATING: 5 out of 10 - once again, I'm being very ambiguous here, because it seems like somewhat important material, but it also seems very stage-y and full of broad stereotypes. Plus points off for excessive time-jumping and not supplying any real character motivations.
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