Funny Ha Ha -
I tried really hard to like Funny Ha Ha. And not just becaue, for all I know, the cute non-professional actress playing the main character, Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), might live in this very building and I'd hate to bump into her into the laundry room and blurt out "hey, I saw that movie you were in...it sucked" (which, as anyone who knows me will attest, is not an unlikely thing to happen). Sure, I could honestly cover by saying how much I liked her, that I liked how she never came off as phony and how her character's aimlessness seemed real and not some Hollywood stereotype.
But in the end, I have to admit, I was unimpressed with the movie as a whole. It's one of that movies where I have to admire its realism but which also makes me question the worth of realism as a goal. There aren't many inauthentic moments in the movie, right down to the dialogue being filled with "like"s, "um"s, pauses, banalities and the like, but it's hard to shake the feeling that I'm paying for something that is no more interesting, no more imaginitive, and no more meaningful, than what I could get eavesdropping on the guys sitting at the next table in the pizza shop. There's almost no story, or plot; these characters haven't been created for any greater purpose, and don't seem unique or unusual enough for a character study.
The movie presents us with Marnie, a basically nice but somewhat directionless woman of 23. Soon after the movie opens, we find out that Alex (Christian Rudder), a friend she's liked since college, and his long-time girlfriend have broken up, leading to an hour plus of awkward moments. While temping, she also meets another guy, played by writer-director-editor Andrew Bujalski, who is immediately smitten. It's not really a courtship picture, though; none of the relationships exactly blossom into something really rewarding.
The structure of the movie isn't completely arbitrary; even though you can't really dissect the final scene (or most scenes) and say "this means this", there is a sense that it ends when Marnie has finally got her relationship with Alex figured out. It's kind of a nice, understated ending. Well, understated compared to other movies; it's almost momentous compared to the rest of this one.
Trilogy: On The Run (
Cavale) -
¾
On The Run was, if it matters, either the last or the second part of Lucas Belvaux's trilogy of interconnected movies to be released in France (the IMDB is inconclusive, though the poster appears to support "second"), but the first here in the US. As with
An Amazing Couple, though, the order is relatively unimportant; the two main characters of
On The Run were downright peripheral in
An Amazing Couple. The movies are also different genres.
I found
On The Run to be a fairly enjoyable thriller/drama, certainly stronger as an example of its genre than
An Amazing Couple. It opens with a fairly well-done escape sequence, not done in grand blockbuster style, but thrilling and tense.
The man escaping from prison is Bruno (writer/director Belvaux), who has spent 15 years behind bars for terroristic crimes that aren't spelled out until later in the movie. Upon returning to Grenoble, he looks up members of his old cell, most of whom have in the interim become middle-class citizens with families, businesses, and lives. Jeanne (Catherine Frot), feeling guilty about Bruno having been in jail while she became a schoolteacher, offers the most assistance, though reluctantly.
Having already seen one other portion of the trilogy and having a vague idea of the plot of the third, it's difficult to watch this and enjoy it as a movie without a lot else going on. When Jeanne hides Bruno in a vacation cabin owned by the characters of
An Amazing Couple, is this an awkward tie-in or something I wouldn't think twice about if I didn't even know
An Amazing Couple existed? I can't be sure. It seems awkward to me, but I've probably found similar scenes suspenseful in the past.
The movie can, I think, be enjoyed on its own, though some bits seem missing - why was Jean-Jean breaking Bruno out of prison now, where did the well-equipped hiding places come from, and exactly who were the sides in the last shoot-out? The ending seemed kind of random, but I liked its understatedness; it emphasized how far Bruno had drifted from everyone else he knew.
Thus far, having seen two out of three of the "Trilogy" movies, I find myself admiring the idea, but not being quite so fond of the individual films, or the execution of the concept.
Heh, the image Edwin has for
On The Run up top is actually for
After The Life.
- positive review; 
- negative review; 
- mixed review; 
- Sanskrit review
