Empty and juvenile...

Rating: 3/10 (14 October 2007)

Initially I got this movie (for 4 bucks, so I'm not heart broken) because I was like "I worship The Graduate, Natalie Portman had a couple of gems in her donut with Leon and Garden State, and I dug Jude Law in I "Heart" Huckabees, so why not?" Also, the Kubrick colors and lofty camera angles made me hopefully optimistic. So now that I've given my excuses for buying the movie, here's what I thought:
First off, I found that Natalie Portman's very first line was an disappointing harbinger of what was to come: an unbelievable, shallow mess of a "destructive drama" with assumed comic relief.
As a whole, the dialogue reminded me of high school freshman trying desperately to come off as confident, "experienced" adults (but with slightly more vulgarity). Now this made for a disturbingly accurate memory jog in Fast Times, but here we're supposed to be following four jaded adults...not convincing in the slightest, and gratuitous enough to surpass a possible shock value becoming completely annoying and expected.
Story wise...the plot was mostly flat with a few expected twists and attempted surprises (particular at the end...yes I watch the whole thing...I was hoping for a holy moment to make my four green backs well spent, but alas...).
As for the acting, there were a couple of moments (mainly the prize of type casting, however), but most of the time everyone just seemed bored.
Photography was very nice, though...as I noted above, the colors were incredible and very possibly mood inspired and, for the most part, the shots/camera angles had their rule of 3 art quality and played well with the architecture (I say "most" because there was one that I found incredibly childish involving Clive and Natalie (despite the content) that should have been left out entirely or done from a more ambiguous angle to maintain the aesthetics of the rest of the film...the scene as is = think the end of the first Austin Powers...yeah).
But aside from that, if you're in the mood for a "destructive relationships drama," I recommend you actually "cross the pond(s)" and try Peppermint Candy or Cry of the Owl (both very different, but very well done films)...or simply watch The Graduate, if you haven't already.