..,.Gary Dretzka
..,.Leonard Klady
...David Poland
...Doug Pratt
...Ray Pride
...S.T. VanAirsdale

JANUARY 20, 2006

Two For The Bowl

It opens with an unidentified woman cleaning up a bedroom and, when putting something away in the night table drawer, finding a vibrator. After returning to consider the object a couple of times to little comic effect, the unidentified woman grabs the vibrator, turns it on and masturbates.

The metaphor extends to pretty much the entire movie.

Nicole Holofcener is a talented filmmaker and will make another good movie one of these days. The cast, particularly the women - Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener, and Frances McDormand - is excellent and they all have their moments to shine. None plays precisely the expected notes. Each has their place in the group of seven friends (Aniston not only doesn't have money, but she is also the only one without a husband, and the only one without a child.)

But it just doesn't add up to anything except for some good scenes for a bunch of good actors. It is not very daring, perhaps in some part because Holofcener chose an actress who won't do nudity to play the sexually available lead... and yes, for all intents and purposes, Jennifer Aniston is the lead of the film. It is not very thought provoking because the two characters that seem to be thinking about anything (Keener & McDormand) are either so self-absorbed or allow events to pass with so little real notice that you walk away with nothing more than you entered with. It is not great quirky stuff because the quirks are so mundane that they make Desperate Housewives seem like Ionesco.

There are a few beats that threaten to turn into something significant. But the movie denies them all into submission. And it is a frustrating stand-off because the set-ups suggest possible outcomes that would be trite and irritating as well. If someone starts acting oddly and out of sorts, you are always expecting the terminal disease. You don't want that. But you don't want her to just feel better at some point either.

Still, there are those beats for all of these actresses that are wonderful. Keener gets to be the bottom in a relationship for a change. McDormand gets to rant. Aniston gets to charm without coyness. And Joan Cusack not only goes a whole film without being called upon to mug once, but shows a flash of her so underappreciated brilliance in a workout scene.

One of the repeating bits is about a sexual relationship with someone who is so disconnected that he borders on being abusive. I was willing to go there. But it just doesn't go anywhere. Aniston gets to fire off perhaps the best line of the movie in the midst of it, but the exploration is as shallow as the guy she's sleeping with, so it is just a one-night stand for us.

I get the feeling that this film was closer to Ms. Holofcener's reality than her first two films were... and perhaps that is the problem. Just because it is a source of intrigue in your coffee klatch does not make it a dramatic film. Friends With Money is not far off of Spanglish as a weak film that examines how the rich suffer with all the probative intensity of "Who's On First?"

Too bad.

Of course, this bit of fictional narcissism takes a backseat to the home movies of Stewart Copeland that pretend to be a documentary called Everybody Stares: The Police Inside Out. When Robert Redford and Geoff Gilmore suggest (and I usually agree with them) that the invasion of Sundance by the vapid likes of Paris Hilton is a sideshow not of their own making, one only needs to point to an entry like this, which cannot really qualify even to be called a film. It is insipid in the way that watching anyone's home movies is... yes, even Sting can be just plain boring.

Of course, it is a one-of-a-kind because only a member of The Police could assemble this footage and get his partners to sign off in its exploitation. But as Copeland, blissfully unaware of how childish he sounds, narrates the film, you can hardly believe that he thought this is something worth showing others... especially in light of recent great works like Scorsese's Dylan doc and Berlinger/Sinofsky's Metallica doc.

I prayed for a noble failure of the kind that some South Bank Show episodes turned out to be, but there was nothing compelling enough in the material to deliver that kind of challenge.

Still, I remain hopefully yours...