Leaving you completely unmoved.

Rating: 4/10 (20 August 2007)

A friend of mine recommended me this movie after I told him I liked Wristcutters (in theaters Oct. 19, go and see it) and I gave it a shot. I was however deeply disappointed in how bland and senseless this movie was, and I use senseless in the context of the movie being devoid of any sensitivity or feelings.
The story was a throwaway love story, lifted out of the infamous 'How to Make a Hollywood Movie: Everyones doin' it!' (This book simply must exist), that centered around the troubled guy finding a unrealistically upbeat girl who changes his life. This story was immersed in the subplot of coming back home to your hometown. Neither of these stories were interesting or made me want to know more about anything connected to them.
On top of this the characters were just, as hinted to earlier, copied from trusted and true standards. Zraffs (or whatever his name is) character (whatever the character was named) didn't do much, he mostly just stood or sat around looking non-plussed, this didn't arouse any interest in me since the guy never did or said anything interesting. And when he finally started opening up and becoming more human because of the love interest Sam this was hardly noticeable and to much of the story had already progressed by this point to save the character.
Sam on the other hand showed to much emotion all the time, making her unbelievable. Her behavior was explained by her being "crazy" although this was never elaborated on and therefore lacks creditability with the audience. Her craziness was further furthered by her family, which consisted of a overly lovable single mom, an African who's reason for being there was never satisfactorily explained, two rottweilers, and an unknown number of goldfish/hamsters/mice/other cuddly animals. Now lets pause for a second, what kind of 'animal lovers' keep cuddly animals within close proximity of rottweilers? It felt as thou her whole family was made as weird as possible to promote her being a very different girl indeed. This made her, and her family, completely unbelievable.
The other characters thrown into the background where stereotypes of people you find in your hometown when you return, and all where dramatically underdeveloped. You were simply supposed to assign them a slot as soon as you saw them and then keep them there for the rest of the movie. There came times when I wanted to know more about a certain character but this pleasure was me denied in the interest of moving the boring story forward.
On the plus side the directing was not that bad, with interesting use of slow motion/fast motion filming. The characters filled their assigned space without ever becoming interesting, which I guess shows that the director got them to do exactly what he wanted, taking into consideration the director also wrote the script.
These are my sensible comments on the film, and in all honesty they are spot on (I wrote them didn't I?). Sorry Zhraff but your movie isn't subtle, beautiful, artsy, deep, philosophical, imaginative, groundbreaking, or even interesting. Back to the writing board for you, or alternatively go and make 10 more seasons of Scrubs, which is a show I enjoy.
PS. I suggest IMDb add rottweilers in their dictionary.