Ahoy, squirts! Quint back with a SUNDANCE DAY ZERO report from a reporter with no name. For now I'll just call him UNK. Unk has a kind of lukewarm review of Don Roos' HAPPY ENDINGS. The overall reviews have been from "pretty good" to "really good." And as for the sly Bush comments... Um, there probably isn't a higher concentration of Liberals anywhere in the world right now than in Park City. Plus when you have an openly gay director speaking about life, odds are Bush and his politics are very important to him at the moment and might come up in conversation. I can understand disagreeing with the comments, I just don't understand the surprise is all. That'd be like me saying, "I was listening to Rush and I don't think he likes Democrats too much..." Anyway, we have 2 more reports from Unk, so keep an eye out for them! Enjoy, squirts!
2005 Sundance Film Festival!!!!
That's where I am now, snowboarding, having fun, meeting people, trying to get these damn people I meet to read my script (called "The Metal Vendetta") and now... Telling you guys what's going on at Park City, the Utah city where the Sundance Festival takes place
Anyway, let's get to the meat. Had lunch this morning and headed for the Eccles Center to catch the World Premiere for the Film "Happy Endings", directed and written by Don Roos, starring Tom Arnold, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Laura Dern, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Lisa Kudrow on... Opening Night!
Oh, wait a minute? Did I just say I had lunch and went to catch the Opening Night Premiere?
Yep. Sundance.org never mailed me my registration date & time (or it got deleted by my ISP, tagged as spam, as they claim - something that DID NOT happen with any other e-mail from the same sender... Odd, uh!?) so I couldn't get tickets for the best movies, which were all sold out.
"The Hell with it! I'm going to stand in the waiting list line!" I said, as I decided not to watch the "less known" films, and watch the real overhyped ones instead (probably a stupid decision, but only time will tell :-) ).
Too good Eccles' Theater 1270 seats were enough for those who had already purchased their
tickets, and for those who had not - like myself. Just for the record, they let people in,
from the waiting list, up to the number 98. So in case, you're planning on coming to
Sundance but are worried about not having tickets... Be cool. If you're willing to wait ,
you'll probably get yourself a seat (I had to wait for almost 2 hours, but remember, this
was a World Premire, Opening Night)
Intro - The festival was declared officially open in a quick speech that started with a few anti-Bush (veiled) lines, in the vein of "the world is a crazy place to live today". Some of the story of the festival was then mentioned, and the 15-minute talking ended with another shot at the Pres', when Don Roos` thanked his boyfriend saying: "One year attacking (or destroying, or something like that) the sanctity of marriage!"
The actual film -
mini-review:
RATING: 3 out of 5 stars
Why? A bittersweet flick which wasn't that bitter and wasn't that sweet.
Happy Endings is worth seeing, if you like movies in the vein of Roos' previous work "The Opposite of Sex", Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" and Richard Curtis' "Love Actually" but the bad thing about it is... The story tries so hard to be "modern" and anti-formulaic that it ends up being old and formulaic.
!?!?!?!
Let me clarify that. This is what the official Sundance film guide says about the plot:
The multiple narrative lines include a filmmaker blackmailing a woman about a son she long ago gave up for adoption; a gay man whose partner was, or perhaps wasn't, the sperm donor for two of their best friends, a lesbian couple; and a 30-something girl who shacks up with a young man trying to convince his father he's straight and then moves on to the dad. In other words, Happy Endings is a true feast of secrets, missed opportunities, and second chances. Roos is a modern American Brecht with unsurpassed comic sensibility and insight.
And this is what happens next, in the story [SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!]:
Filmmaker blackmailing a woman about a son she long ago gave up for adoption - what usually happens next, in real world? Either the blackmailing fails or the blackmailing works, right? Question: What happens in "Happy Endings"? Answer: The woman falls in love with the blackmailer.
A gay man whose partner was, or perhaps wasn't, the sperm donor for two of their best friends - what usually happens next, in real world? Either his partner was or was not the donor, right? In Happy Endings what happens is: the "partner" finds out that the "gay man" has cheated on him with another man.
Did you see what I mean by saying that "the story tries so hard to be "modern" and anti-formulaic that it ends up being old and formulaic" ?
It's not like the movie's got a moronic plot, cause it hasn't.
But the solutions found by the screenwriter to close the subplots are always so "awkward" and trying to be representative of a "modern" world, where gays do not suffer any prejudice, lesbian women raise a child without anyone being against it, 50 years old men do not feel any "guilt" or "shame" for sleeping with 20 years old girs - that comes a moment where you simply *know* that every following subplot will be closed in a way that is A) unexpected (so you start to expect the unexpected, and is not surprised when it comes) and B) representative of a fair world where people do not suffer or are punished for being part of a minority (gays, lesbians, old men after young girls)
And this is what makes the film a bit too unbelievable to be taken seriously enough to be considered a real bittersweet piece - The awkward parts (and some hideous characters) don't let it be sweet all the way down... And the "forgiving" or "consenting" parts don't let it be bitter all the way down either.
However, if you take it as a "light romantic comedy", maybe you... No. Forget that. Someone is almost killed in a real ugly accident in the first minute of the movie.
It does seem like "Happy Endings" is too heavy to be a comedy and too light to be a
drama. 3 out of 5 stars.
