This is quite possibly the worst movie of the last decade. Six hateful, spiteful characters with nothing to teach us, no wisdom to share, no insights to illuminate. Just vitriol and anger.
Do we really need to see 130 minutes of Joan Allen snipping at everyone that gets in the way of her "broodfest"? Don't we get that she's bitter and resentful after the first few scenes? Don't we understand the level of her bitchiness is deep, and the repercussions for trying to bring her out of her dark place are severe? So what if her husband left her for a Sweedish dish, why do I care? I never cared. Quite frankly, I would have left her for an ugly Romanian char-woman.
I've never seen a story filled with more rudderless losers. I think you could go to an AA meeting and have more fun. Hell, a funeral would be a comparative hoot.
What's worse, however, is that this movie tries to pass itself off as some sort of social commentary on the human condition. It thinks it knows something, or has something to say. Unless that message is: "people are bitter, angry people, that suck, and when bad things happen to them they suck even more, and can't pull themselves out of a death spiral even after three long, boring years of drinking and hatred" then fine, I guess it has a message.
Worse still, is that a lot of people are buying it. (Look at some of the comments on this site.) So let me help you... it's crap. Don't pretend it's something that it's not. Dark films with points have their place, but this isn't one of them. This is a dark, POINTLESS, film. "Full of sound and fury..." and all that.
The characters, too, don't have any pearls of wisdom to offer us. They walk around, drunk, high, or stupid the entire time. They don't even have reasons for doing what they do- they, all of a sudden, just do things. For example, when Joan's character gives up drinking (for a brief moment). Why? No explanation. Or when Costner's character confronts writer, actor, doofus radio producer, Shep, about sleeping with Allen's daughter and says "I should have stopped you earlier." (Oh, wow, how powerful.) Yeah, but that would have made you interesting. And who would have wanted that?
But, don't despair, all is not lost. Some fun can be had if you are drugged and forced to go see this... abomination. You can try to spot the hundreds of continuity problems. Here are a few to get you started: a dog that appears out of nowhere, a bedroom that gets a makeover halfway through, characters that appear and then disappear for no reason, seasons that change on a schedule unfamiliar with the pattern established over the last hundred million years or so... and, my favorite, a man who can fall into a hole, die, and while dead, cover himself up with boards. Nice.
The bottom line: if you waste your money on this film, there will be one more angry person out there and there is no upside to that.
Do we really need to see 130 minutes of Joan Allen snipping at everyone that gets in the way of her "broodfest"? Don't we get that she's bitter and resentful after the first few scenes? Don't we understand the level of her bitchiness is deep, and the repercussions for trying to bring her out of her dark place are severe? So what if her husband left her for a Sweedish dish, why do I care? I never cared. Quite frankly, I would have left her for an ugly Romanian char-woman.
I've never seen a story filled with more rudderless losers. I think you could go to an AA meeting and have more fun. Hell, a funeral would be a comparative hoot.
What's worse, however, is that this movie tries to pass itself off as some sort of social commentary on the human condition. It thinks it knows something, or has something to say. Unless that message is: "people are bitter, angry people, that suck, and when bad things happen to them they suck even more, and can't pull themselves out of a death spiral even after three long, boring years of drinking and hatred" then fine, I guess it has a message.
Worse still, is that a lot of people are buying it. (Look at some of the comments on this site.) So let me help you... it's crap. Don't pretend it's something that it's not. Dark films with points have their place, but this isn't one of them. This is a dark, POINTLESS, film. "Full of sound and fury..." and all that.
The characters, too, don't have any pearls of wisdom to offer us. They walk around, drunk, high, or stupid the entire time. They don't even have reasons for doing what they do- they, all of a sudden, just do things. For example, when Joan's character gives up drinking (for a brief moment). Why? No explanation. Or when Costner's character confronts writer, actor, doofus radio producer, Shep, about sleeping with Allen's daughter and says "I should have stopped you earlier." (Oh, wow, how powerful.) Yeah, but that would have made you interesting. And who would have wanted that?
But, don't despair, all is not lost. Some fun can be had if you are drugged and forced to go see this... abomination. You can try to spot the hundreds of continuity problems. Here are a few to get you started: a dog that appears out of nowhere, a bedroom that gets a makeover halfway through, characters that appear and then disappear for no reason, seasons that change on a schedule unfamiliar with the pattern established over the last hundred million years or so... and, my favorite, a man who can fall into a hole, die, and while dead, cover himself up with boards. Nice.
The bottom line: if you waste your money on this film, there will be one more angry person out there and there is no upside to that.