I know I bandy the word about a lot. But this movie truly is a masterpiece of storytelling. The way it captures rural depression and existential anxiety is unrivaled.
Why hasn't White done anything more like this? Why aren't there more indie flicks of this quality?
And why not bandy that term around for it is well applied here!
It has so many subtleties and these are hard to portray on screen. It is almost a case of having to under-act but it is sheer genius how Aniston manages to pull off all of those subtle expressions and there are a great many of them in this film. It's sad to read so many criticisms on here but I reckon for most, this was a one trick pony. You have to view it a few times to really venture beneath the veneer and absorb this rural "end of the road" type mentality.
Here we have a woman so bored with her life that her head is turned by a mysterious colleague who, in comparison with her husband, Phil, a pot-smoking layabout, seems exciting to her. It's the catalogue of events that follow which causes Justine to somewhat decline into self-preservation. Yes, she acts selfishly for the most part but only because her fling starts to get increasingly complex and she's just wants a way to put a stop to the madness without hurting everyone in her circle. We see her guilt manifest shortly after Gwen's death - she realises she really has gotten in too deep.
There is a great message behind this story - people in small towns can't carry on in such a way without there being inevitable consequences. Had this been set in the city it wouldn't have been the same film, however. It is precisely this small town mentality that needed to be portrayed and what made this story so terribly tragic for almost all of the characters.
"Has anyone seen my wife?" - Columbo
Thank you. Well put.
For me it keeps coming back to that old chestnut "atmosphere" or, rather, ambience. This movie could easily have been some romantic comedy ("Employee of the month"...) based on the cast, but somehow it became pure indie gold. I wonder how much work was put into the script. It seems so straight forward, and yet there are so many subtleties going on.
I can't help compare it to Snow Angels, another "comedy" with such dark - and wonderful - undertones of despair and the very edge of a crisis. Speaking as someone who indentified too much with "Halden" I amazed that such a mentality, such sickness, is presented with litte fanfare. As if we all have this darkness in us.
Perhaps it's an american thing - shcool and office shootings - this desperation under the surface. This thing waiting to explode.
I think it is far from underrated and in fact quite overrated. Do you mean "overlooked"? It has an 81 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, including the following raves from top critics:
Mick LaSalle, SF Chronicle: "A smart, arch and rather cold-blooded comedy."
Rex Reed, NY Observer: "What a fresh and interesting take on the drama that lurks beneath the numbing façade of empty small-town American life."
Roger Ebert: "Aniston has at last decisively broken with her Friends image in an independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil."
Andrew Sarris, NY Observer: "Working with emotionally dangerous material, Mr. Arteta sails through without undue malice, reminding me of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder."
Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times: "One of the year's best films."
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: "A droll, well-acted, character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling."
Hoberman's review was especially shocking as he (and the Voice generally) generally hates almost everything.
--------
My top 250: http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=SlackerInc&perpage=250
it's a nice little movie but i wouldn't call it a masterpiece
so many movies, so little time