I know peoples' tastes are different, but this movie has the same problem a lot of others have--I don't care about any of the characters. If I don't care for the characters then I don't care what happens to them. It is 20 minutes into this movie (and the second time I have tried to watch it, due to its star Duchovny) and I will now turn it off.
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Agreed. I saw this in the theatre back when it came out, and after 40 minutes I was still unclear as to what the stakes where.
shareas to what the stakes were...
I would suggest for you to avoid too complex movies, (not that TtM is that at all) and enjoy easy fun, or scary exiting movies with one easy albeit mostly unrealistic story line and one hero/ditto bad guy.
Life is a single skip for joy
With the subject being the inability to "care" about the characters, it's not unfair for me to attribute that criticism to the filmmakers having not shown what the characters care about. In other words, what's "at stake."
I do agree that this film is not complex. But I don't think a movie has to be complex to be good. And this movie could've been very good, especially with Billy C's comic performance. To be "good," a movie must only do what the original poster stated: contain characters you care about.
While I appreciate your suggestion about the sorts of films I ought to seek in the future, please remember that sarcasm doesn't translate well when written. Also, it's good to be friendly on these boards as it's more fun to discuss a film & its merits than get on one another's cases.
Be well,
Chris H.
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"I don't care about any of the characters."
That's exactly the point. You find yourself not being able to identify with or root for any of the characters, because they're all schmucks. But isn't that interesting - once you realize this, the movie becomes VERY complex in my opinion. Each of the characters exhibits various neuroses that lie in EVERYONE's unconscious. Perhaps it's a little uncomfortable. Each of these people is screwed up in his or her own self-absorbed deluded way. Sound familiar? That's us, people!
So then the question becomes, WHY are they so screwed up? And I think the answer to that lies in the relation between the sexes. That's what the whole film is dancing around. It's a tragicomedy. It's so depressing to see how *beep* and meaningless their problems are - whining about babies, porn addictions, Botox... but then, you have to laugh hysterically too, when the guys jump out like heroes in the end to "save" their "princesses" and win back their prison-cell-esque relationships. Really! Is that not comical? At the end, don't you just want to bash them all upside the head?
I have pretty much the same criteria, and had the same problem. I found myself beginning to care what happened to the characters over an hour in ... I suspect because at that point the women were trying to cope with what was going on (instead of just shopping together and having sortof-snappy dialog) and the men were beginning to have a clue.
So I relate to you zoning out at the 20' and 40' marks.
The big problem I get with this movie and others like it -- I picture a small committee of movie executives telling some writers "we're gonna get a bunch of big stars, and we'll do something like Woody Allen's movies about a bunch of married couples". It's not like the film seemed inspired at any point.
Still, I got it for my wife because I figured it would be good enough. Close call, because she didn't get interested until the second hour, either.
I just read my old snotty remark - sorry.
You know, I have kids and me and my partner live a pretty hectic life.
So does a lot of our friends and sure enough - some of them cheat on one another, etc.
I felt like, this movie was finally an American production that showed us the truth about Family life, Marriages, Expectations, Sex etc. All of it wrapped up in comedy with a sort of ridiculous ending which still left me with a smile on my face though. I liked it. Thought the actors did a good job, too.