Plot, Interrupted

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2000)

Over the years I seem to have developed a certain suspicion of movies that advertise themselves as "emotional", "touching", etc. The problem is that these movies are very phony; any semblance of human depth and true emotion only comes through in cliches and worn out plot devices.
I immediately understood the direction that the film was going to take when a suicide is announced early in the film. Unfortunately most of us have had some sort of experience with suicide at some point of our lives, it is a thing that scars us, or at least haunts us for some time. In the film, however, little is revealed about the girl who killed herself; it's obvious the filmmakers are just looking for a quick emotion shot, throwing around a suicide just to create some sort of dreary, mental hospital atmosphere that is supposed to set the tone for the rest of the film. On paper, it all looks very calculated and laid out, in the film, it just doesn't work.
Spontaneity lacks, of course, when director and screenwriter allow plot to succumb to trick and tactic. As the movie moves into the middle to last acts, it lags horribly, and to shake things up another suicide is presented, this time in much more gruesome fashion. However, I found the dead girl's personality just too much of a cliche and lacking in any real depth to care for her. Again the filmmakers insult the audience's intelligence.
To top it off, the ending is a cartoon ending, where everyone stands around laughing. Poor, poor, poor. The plot goes nowhere, we learn nothing about the cardboard characters presented, and to my dismay I swear that a part of the soundtrack rips off from "The Shawshank Redemption" (maybe I'm imagining it).
Another failed "chick-flick".
6 of 10.