Although I like this film very much (I give it an 8 out of 10), I really have a problem with the acting of both female leads AND of the Ricky-character: in my opinion, they are overacting to an irritating extent. I kept saying to myself: what the hell is wrong with these people, it's just TOO much! Still, it's brilliant to keep that up during the entire movie, so you see: mixed feelings...
Anyone else with me?
...the Master is coming....
I enjoyed the film BECAUSE of the acting. There is that scene in the pub, where they are sitting round a table and each of them has a mannerism which becomes more and more pronounced - yes it is a little beyond the realms of realism, but it is brilliantly entertaining. And when I look around at the way people really behave, I realise it's not THAT far off the mark... . Is that the scene you're referring to? Or is the shy girl too shy for you? Well, in real life I've met someone even shier, so she was completely believable for me.
It reminds me very very much of a houseful of art students I used to spend time with. Quite uncanny.
yeah its certainly too much to count as realistic however that is what I mostly enjoyed about it since we were seeing the memories through the eyes of the two women and it may have appeared to them this way (due to the heavy consumption of each kind of drugs maybe hehe) so I really think the overacting in the past had a good point. it reminded me of a lot of performances my favorite german stage director creates, you problaby won't know him though but in a lot ways his way of storytelling is quite similiar to Mike Leigh's
shareIt was obviously intentionally caricature-ish, almost on a Napoleon Dynamite level but the tone of the film is so much more down to earth and realistic that it's hard to accept it as a caricature and you just think, as you said, "what the hell is wrong with these people"? I think the film was trying to highlight just how weird and socially awkward people can be. Not sure if anything was really wrong with them except for Ricky who probably did have some form of Autism.
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Perhaps this is how they remember themselves? That is, the acting in the flashbacks is through the lens of their memories of how they were and they've exaggerated their cardinal and secondary traits.
Brilliant acting, I thought.
Totally agree. I'm a huge Mike Leigh fan but I just couldn't finish this one. I finally walked out during the scene in the bar. It was like "oh so this what actors are like if a director doesn't reign them in. This is horrible."
shareAgree, agree, agree!!
OMG, this film is on cable every Saturday morning now, and it's making me angry. This is rubbernecking at its best. You want to pull your eyes away from this train wreck, but you can't out of disbelief.
Sincerely, does anybody really talk like Lynda Steadman in this? She sounds like a suburban American chic trying to sound British. Or worse, a man trying to sound like a British woman. I can't find enough about her online to satisfy my curiosity.
This film is about nothing. If you came from way before or way after Generation X, maybe you would find the trends and styles mildly interesting. Otherwise, what human conflicts were acted out here? Sexual depravity? A couple of extremely insecure and weak women. I went to college about this "The Cure" timeframe, and I can tell you it wasn't like this. Girls were not this miserable and ashamed. Being an American, I can't confirm it, but London circa 1980-something couldn't have been this bad. They didn't have dentists?
"Why you hanging with me, Lily?"
The younger versions of the characters seem to be very caricature-like, and indeed somewhat unnerving. One odd character I can buy, but several of them, all weird, just feels forced.
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