This is a movie that delights in shocking, but there seems no emotional core to hang the acidity onto, and thus encourage the audience to stick with certain characters throughout their bouts of misanthropy. The tagline as well as Christina Ricci's narrator heralds the nastiness contained within, but it rarely rings true except to gain a cheap laugh. It's transparently affected.
With such a smugly knowing film, it's incredibly hard to care. The talented cast do what they can with the mere 'mouthpieces' they are given as characters, but even some interesting observations present themselves in almost wholly unappealing ways. Ricci and Kudrow get the best lines, but that's all they are - one-liners - a crippling lack of investment behind them from either the writers, performers, or most crucially, the watcher themselves.
Too 'frothy' a subject to be truly dark, yet simply too unpleasantly acerbic to engender even a smidgen of good feeling toward any of its characters. If its aim was to be sharp, it's a shame to report that it's mostly just painful.
(**/*****, or 'fair' on the "Empire" ratings scale. See 'Boards' profile.)
With such a smugly knowing film, it's incredibly hard to care. The talented cast do what they can with the mere 'mouthpieces' they are given as characters, but even some interesting observations present themselves in almost wholly unappealing ways. Ricci and Kudrow get the best lines, but that's all they are - one-liners - a crippling lack of investment behind them from either the writers, performers, or most crucially, the watcher themselves.
Too 'frothy' a subject to be truly dark, yet simply too unpleasantly acerbic to engender even a smidgen of good feeling toward any of its characters. If its aim was to be sharp, it's a shame to report that it's mostly just painful.
(**/*****, or 'fair' on the "Empire" ratings scale. See 'Boards' profile.)