Towards the beginning of this movie the main character, who is a podcaster, has a conversation with his editor where he tells her he has all kinds of things he wants to say, and she tells him that he needs a story in order to say them.
This is the resulting story.
Basically, B. J. Novak has a number of little speeches that live somewhere between a rant and lecture that he wants to say, and the movie provides him a vehicle to get from one to the next. I'm not saying that none of these are interest or valuable, but the story simply isn't strong enough to get to take them to heart. And worse than that, B. J. Novak isn't really a good enough actor to get you to buy the choices his character makes in the more dramatic scenes at the movie's end.
The movie this is most similar to is David Byrne's True Stories, one of my favorite movies of all time. That movie has a similar setting, some of the rants the characters go on have an almost eerily similar ring (Spalding Gray and Ashton Kutcher's speeches in particular seem to be different takes on the same thing). But True Stories doesn't have a plot at all. Maybe that's the problem with this film. B. J. Novak shouldn't have taken his editor's advice. Let someone who has a story to tell, tell a story. B. J. Novak would have been better off just driving around the heartland interviewing eccentric characters.
This is the resulting story.
Basically, B. J. Novak has a number of little speeches that live somewhere between a rant and lecture that he wants to say, and the movie provides him a vehicle to get from one to the next. I'm not saying that none of these are interest or valuable, but the story simply isn't strong enough to get to take them to heart. And worse than that, B. J. Novak isn't really a good enough actor to get you to buy the choices his character makes in the more dramatic scenes at the movie's end.
The movie this is most similar to is David Byrne's True Stories, one of my favorite movies of all time. That movie has a similar setting, some of the rants the characters go on have an almost eerily similar ring (Spalding Gray and Ashton Kutcher's speeches in particular seem to be different takes on the same thing). But True Stories doesn't have a plot at all. Maybe that's the problem with this film. B. J. Novak shouldn't have taken his editor's advice. Let someone who has a story to tell, tell a story. B. J. Novak would have been better off just driving around the heartland interviewing eccentric characters.