Hey folks, Harry here with that non-simian... Taylor, who just saw ATTRACTION at the 25th annual Toronto International Film Festival. Seems like a film for different tastes.. I adore Samantha Mathis on film... I'll check it out if given the chance...
Hello there again. It's 1am and we have to be up in 5 1/2 hours for our screening of Brother in the morning so no promises on better spelling or grammar this time, just another review from a one film only day.
Attraction, directed by first timer Russel DeGrazier, is a story revolving around 4 people and their relationships with one another. Disregard what the TIFF site says specifically about this movie. It's pretty far off. Most notably is that the film time frame is present day and spanning about 5 weeks or so and not the 24 hour period in 1972 as the sypnosis on the site would lead you to believe. The main focus of the movie is on the obsession of Matthew (played by Matthew Settle) with a former girlfriend Liz (Gretchen Mol). A friend/associate (not really clearly stated in the film) of Matthews, played by Tom Everett Scott is concerned for both Matthew and Liz over his obsession which starts off with parking and sleeping outside her home, to attempting to kick down the door. That particular night (with the door) Matthew ends up at a bar and runs into a friend of Liz's, Corey (Samantha Mathis). With Coreys obvious interest in Matthew shown, Matthew feels he can use Corey to get to Liz. Without getting into more of the plot, the film takes the 4 characters through an almost love-square. Although not a very gripping film, it's well done considering this is DeGraziers first outing. Although I can't speak for certain, and should have confirmed, I'm not sure this is a final cut. There were no intoductory credits for the cast or crew, just the title, and no scrolling credits at the end. And considering the information published on-line from the TIFF web site. I think this may have been just another cut of the film. There are a couple moments of brilliance in the film with the portrayal of obsession with the characters and the emotions are quite real, or seemingly so, based on how I would expect myself or people I know to handle these situation(s). There's a lot of truth in this movie. The acting is good enough, considering the subject matter, but I'm not sure who the ideal audience for this film is.
After leaving the movie to go back to the car, a couple was paying their garage ticket, and asked if we had just come back from seeing Attraction. To which we replied yes. The Lady felt it was an excellent film, however a problem with the garage ticket machine kept us from continuing the conversation to see why she felt that way. Of the 5 movies I've seen so far at the festival. This one would be 4th. (Best of Show, Memento, Swedish Beauty, Attraction, The Weight of Water). I did enjoy the film. And if it does get picked up, I'd be very much interested in seeing what the final cut might look like. Through Q&A at the end, a questionable question was asked about whether or not the ending of this "final cut" was the only one considered. DeGrazier answered that there were many they had, but felt for whatever reasons he gave (At this time I was too focused on groaning over the question to actually hear the full answer) they chose this one. Based on the audiences' luke warm applause at the end, I suspect this might go back to the editing room. I could see a lot was likely cut from the film to get it down to it's 95 minute running time. (I didn't check my watch to confirm, but it felt like an hour and a half). I'm not sure if that extra footage would have helped or hurt. There are some unanswered questions, but they're not very important questions.
Mathis, DeGrazier and Scott sat in the audience. Sitting about 10 seats over from us, one row difference. They seemed quite friendly with people before and after the picture. Although, I'm not sure if this is common with film stars in general, or ones whose just-screened film was given, what was compartively, luke warm applause, or just these two, but they seemed somewhat nervous. The Q&A session was brief, and at one point resulted in a fesitval programmer having to come up with a question of his own to give people in the audience time to come up with another pointless question. The two Q&A's I've stayed at have this feeling of awkwardness. Perhaps this is the nervousness that seems to surround the cast and director before and after the screening. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject? Needless to say, Samantha Mathis was kind enough to look at me when thanking me for congratulating her work in the film. And with a picture of Tawny and Tom Everett Scott, he looked directly at the camera, and accepted at least a half dozen other photographs, as did Mathis. Although I'm kicking myself a little for not asking for a photo with Mathis. She seemed quite timid, and therefore I didn't ask for a photo, once again I question the reasons for this awkwardness. Although it's perhaps due to the fact that the people in this theatre, talking to her, and asking for photos and autographs, just saw her naked in the film. That would make anyone nervous I think, I sure as hell wasn't going to ask if that's why. Then again, perhaps it's all just in my head. :)
Unfortunatly this is not the movie to launch Scott, Mathis or Mols career to the next level. They've all been involved in better films. Still, Attraction is a decent film, but I'm guessing it to become a "creme-de-la-creme of straight to video" release. Maybe a better edit will surface and give it that extra nudge I feel it needs to take in a respectable box office draw.
Taylor
