Sometimes, you really look forward to a film. A great, personal premise, great actors, and a cool location start things off and you figure you are off to the races. Then the film has a generational feel to it with some added organic nostalgia, a whiff of melancholy and an exploration of life and what people do with it. Cool. Wait… that wasn’t this movie. How did things go so horribly wrong with this film?
Sometimes, you really look forward to a film. A great, personal premise, great actors, and a cool location start things off and you figure you are off to the races. Then the film has a generational feel to it with some added organic nostalgia, a whiff of melancholy and an exploration of life and what people do with it. Cool. Wait… that wasn’t this movie. How did things go so horribly wrong with this film?
It always intrigues me to think who called in which favor to make a movie like this. Did Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Thomas Jane really need to make this movie? And was Carla Gugino that bored? I don’t know the answer but I am sure it is an interesting story. Generally what happens is actors are attracted to good material, and somewhere along the way things go horribly wrong, but contracts have already been signed and now it’s just time to enjoy the Big Sur scenery. Which is amazing, by the way and you actually want the movie to get out of the way just so you could look at the pretty coastline. That’s when you know a movie is pretty bad. When the star is the background.
The film focuses around four troubled fortysomethings who meet in a vacation home at Big Sur every year and this is the year that everything goes to shit. Every character is a caricature, every scene contrived and I haven’t seen such sloppy screenwriting since Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
You know you’re in trouble when each character speaks like they are reading a script coverage report. “Here are your character flaws, here is what’s wrong with you, etc.” You wonder if any of these characters should be friends, and if anyone is still friends with the screenwriter.
SPOILER ALERT: This movie is terrible. And without going into too much detail because it will be just as laughable boring if I just describe it, The dudes in their 40s start to complain about their lives and one of them is genuinely depressed. Obviously, in a sloppy film, you know he is going to kill himself as soon as he comes on screen. Remember The Company Men? Same thing but way more obvious.
This is now direct advice to screenwriters and filmmakers: Having your character kill him or herself is THE LEAST COMPELLING THING YOU CAN DO EVER. It’s sloppy, contrived, and cheap. You want to know what’s a 1000 times more interesting? Having a character deal with their problems, either willfully or unwillfully.
BIG SPOILER ALERT So one of the guys kills himself and a suicide pact they all made in high school is revealed. The others are mildly depressed, but hey, a deal is a deal so they all have to do it. So the rest of the characters follow suit with one murder to break things up. Yes, that’s what happens. I was trying very hard not to laugh out loud at the press screening. The beach house soon has multiple perfectly manicured graves outside of it. But again, the scenery was beautiful.
I hate to be so hard on this film, but nothing gets me angrier than wasted potential. This film had all the cards lined up for it and just wasted every chance it got. Even the music was bad. The composer was scoring a horror movie, and the 80’s punk soundtrack had a feel of “This is all we can afford. We blew it all on getting White Lines”
It’s one thing to make a bad film, but it’s even worse to waste everyone’s time, which is what this movie did, from the actors to the audience. Please never to do this again. Bad filmmakers, Bad! Get in the house and don’t come out until you’ve read STORY by Robert McKee at least three times.
—Chris Mancini
