Look closer...oops! Too close!

Rating: 1/10 (18 October 1999)

This piece of sitcommy, cliche-ridden claptrap is just smart enough on its surface for the middlebrow Academy to pimp it for a Best Picture Oscar. But anyone with half a brain will see through this tired male fantasy pretty soon. Mendes shows us a Edward Scissorhands-type of suburbia: perfect lawns, identical homes, etc... We are expected to know (since we've seen ES, Ice Storm, Happiness, Serial Mom, etc.) that these people must lead shallow, empty lives - look where they live! And... they do! This is just the first of many obvious themes that we have seen so many times before. And we haven't even reached Spacey's character's midlife crisis yet. (Surprise! He falls in sexual lust with a gorgeous high-school blonde. Sooooo subversive! Look closer, and you'll find even more cliches.) Spacey's wife is, predictably, a self-centered shrew who won't satisfy him sexually but cooks delicious nutritious dinners and sells (surprise) real estate. His daughter is a misfit (wow!) with whom he can't connect. The new kid on the block (of course there is one) is a weird, sensitive (but handsome) loner type (shocker) who (believe it or not) falls for Spacey's moody daughter. Don;t even ask about the gay neighbors. Mendes does nothing but condescend to his characters, his setting, and above all, the audience. Positives: Thora Birch is terrific and lovely; Mena Suvari is breathtakingly beautiful, and the plastic bag sequence is affecting. Pretentious c***.