Six LA Love Stories

Love can be exhausting.

(2016) Romantic Comedy (Random Media) Beth Grant, Matthew Lillard, Stephen Tobolowsky, Carrie Preston, Alicia Witt, Peter Bogdanovich, Ashley Williams, Michael Dunaway, Ross Partridge, Marshall Allman, David Claassen, Jennifer Lafleur, Michael Milford, Davie-Blue, Hayley Polak, Mitch Swan, Don Most, Savannah Remington, Kayla Swift, Ogy Dunham, Summer Rose Ly, Jamie Anne Allman. Directed by Michael Dunaway

 

The rest of the country has a kind of love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. Some admire the beautiful beaches and the energy that has made it one of the world’s great cities. Others decry the shallowness that comes from essentially being a Hollywood company town. Still, like every town, city, megalopolis and village around the globe, love occurs on a daily basis.

This film takes place on a single day in sunny Southern California and follows six different couples, all at varying stages in their relationship. None of the stories are interconnected and all have just one thing in common; a couple either falling in love, deeply in love, or falling out of love.

At a pool party at a Hollywood producer’s mansion, Robin (Williams) bitches on her phone about her air-headed sister while Wes (Partridge) overhears. The two strike up a conversation and although Robin initially reacts with distaste, she soon finds that she and Wes have a lot more in common than she thought.

Alan (Lillard) arrives home early from work to discover his wife Diane (Preston) having sex with another man. Infuriated, then deeply wounded, Alan struggles to find out why she betrayed him like that; Diane’s answers aren’t what he expects nor are they necessarily what he really wants to hear.

Amanda (Lafleur) is the stage manager at a self-help convention event where multiple speakers are given a limited amount of time to address the audience. As Duane (Bogdanovich) goes up, Amanda is confronted with her ex-lover Camille (Dunham) who is getting ready to speak. As Amanda seems to be okay with things the way they are, Camille has something she specifically wants to say to her.

Mara (J.A. Allman) meets up for a drink with her ex-boyfriend Pete (M. Allman) whose acting career has stalled and has decided to take a stab at screenwriting instead. As Pete describes a recent meeting with a studio exec, Mara is reminded of all the things that led to their break-up but can’t quite deny that there isn’t a spark there.

Terry (Witt) visits her ex-husband Nick (Dunaway) to discuss the schooling options for their daughter. Nick appears to have moved on from their amicable divorce but Terry clearly hasn’t. Her feelings of anger towards her ex hide something much deeper and much less unpleasant inside her.

Finally, John (Tobolowsky) is the only tourist on the tour of the Will Rogers estate with Meg (Grant), a guide there. While they are initially at odds with each other – John is a college professor who also writes books for a think tank on Rogers and is a bit of an insufferable know-it-all – Meg senses that she can supply something that John may need even more.

The moods on the various vignettes vary from overtly humorous (Meg-John) to bittersweet and dark (Alan-Diane) to surprising (Terry-Nick). Like most ensemble pieces, the quality varies between the stories, ranging from authentic (Alan-Diane) to goofy (Meg-John) to downright unrealistic (Meg-John). The cast is pretty solid though and the performances are generally reflective of that, although Lillard and Preston essentially steal the show in their vignette which is very much the best of the six. While I liked both the Meg and John characters and the performances by Grant and Tobolowsky, I just didn’t connect with their story which seemed tonally at odds with the other five. The one that the director appears in as an actor oddly enough was for me ironically the weakest vignette of the six.

This was originally released on home video back in 2016 but was re-released last month by Random Media who apparently cleaned up some sound issues (reviews from the original release complained about the sound but I didn’t notice any problems with it). While it is reminiscent of Love Actually in terms of subject matter, this movie first of all doesn’t have the interconnection between the stories that film has which while totally not a bad thing, I found myself wondering why they needed a full length movie (albeit one only an hour and 20 minutes long) for this movie when six individual short films might have worked better. Besides, London at Christmastime trumps L.A. in the summer anytime.

The Alan and Diane story is the one worth seeing but because the six stories are intercut together, you have to watch the other five as well and while none of them are painful to watch, none of them approach the quality of the Alan-Diane saga so keep that in mind. Otherwise a solid effort by a first time narrative feature writer-director.

REASONS TO GO: The dialogue is generally pretty well-written.
REASONS TO STAY: The quality between vignettes varies.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and some sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bogdanovich appears at the behest of his daughter Antonia who is a producer on the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/6/18: Rotten Tomatoes
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Love Actually
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Hearts Beat Loud

Nancy, Please

Nancy is all smoke and mirrors.

(2012) Drama (Small Coup) Will Rogers, Eleonore Hendricks, Rebecca Lawrence, Santino Fontana, Novella Nelson, Wally Dunn, Timothy Chastain, Ellis Cahill, Steph Holmbo, Claire Molloy, Elizabeth Ansell, Peter Coleman, Alice Kemelberg, Alex Robles, Alexis Rose, Hilary Shar, Matthew Taylor. Directed by Andrew Semans   

 

It doesn’t take much to annoy most of us. Petty little cruelties can prey on our minds. Most of the time we just brush it off and simply classify the perpetrator as a jerk and move on. Once in awhile however something just captures our brains and we get obsessed by the injustice, determined to exact our measure of triumph out of a situation in which we feel wronged.

Paul (Rogers) is a doctoral candidate at Yale, working on a thesis that follows the description of the English political process described by Charles Dickens in his classic novel Little Dorrit. To that end he has his own hardcover in which he has written notes covering the subject.

Life is actually pretty good for Paul. He’s just moved in with his beautiful girlfriend Jen (Lawrence) who is supporting him while he works on his thesis, which he is finally ready to start writing. However as he’s unpacking, he discovers to his chagrin that the crucial copy of the book has been left behind at his old apartment. Therefore he calls his old roommate Nancy (Hendricks) to see if he can drop by and pick up the book.

Days go by and he hears nothing. He is beginning to get frantic. His best friend Charlie (Fontana), a fellow doctoral candidate, urges him to simply drive over to his apartment and knock on the door. s they do, Paul is certain he glimpses Nancy inside but she doesn’t answer the door. The door turns out to be unlocked but Paul feels awkward about going in so he continues to wait.

The cat and mouse game between Paul and Nancy continues, escalating. Nancy does return his call a couple of times but always when Paul is unavailable. Paul is becoming obsessed, certain that Nancy has some sort of vendetta against him. Jen is becoming irritated because Paul is neglecting to do things around their house that he’d promised to do, forcing Jen who is supporting them to have to take care of things that Paul has more time to deal with.

However Paul is too busy dealing with Nancy to really focus on anything else. His faculty advisor, Dr. Bannister (Nelson) is growing impatient; it has been two years since Paul began his doctoral work and he has shown little or no movement in getting his thesis done. She is threatening to have him removed from the program. Paul’s stress is turning to desperation; he needs that book. So finally after a good deal of prodding from both Charlie and Jen, he decides to go in using a spare key Jen had when she used to come by the apartment to visit him and just get the book himself. This plan turns out to be disastrous.

Humiliated and physically injured, Paul’s paranoia about Nancy is reaching the boiling point. Jen, seeing that things have gone far out of control, finally takes matters into her own hands and in her mind (and in any other reasonable person’s mind) resolves the situation. But in Paul’s mind things are far from over…

This isn’t an easy film to sit through. I think that this is best described as a horror film that is going on only in the lead character’s mind. The innovative thing here is that it’s not actually a horror movie to anyone but Paul. Paul sees Nancy as some sort of cruel monster and she’s a vindictive bitch to be sure but Paul is about as passive a character as you’re likely to meet. He is so aggravating that Da Queen, not normally given to such hyperbole, proclaimed him the biggest pussy in the history of movies. She may have a point.

But so many male indie film leads could be described using that pejorative and you wouldn’t be far wrong and I think that part of the filmmaker’s intent is to satirize the somewhat cliché indie  saw of a passive male lead whose life is resolved either by a strong female presence or through some sort of external motivation. As someone who has seen his life transformed by the love of a good woman, I can’t argue that a man can’t find self-confidence and an improved sense of self-worth through that process. I can say though that it is used far too often in indie films of late.

The focus of the movie is on the antagonists Nancy and Paul and somewhat refreshingly it is more vital for those two to have chemistry than for Paul and Jen to have it and in fact that is the case. Hendricks gives a strong performance in a role that is pretty thankless; Nancy really doesn’t have any reason not to give Paul the book other than to inflict punishment for some sort of transgression – I assume it’s because he had the gall to move out on her. Given her actions it’s not surprising that he’d want to.

Even more thankless is the role of Paul. He’s the nominal “hero” of the piece but he’s far from heroic. In fact, the danger here is that Rogers might be too good in the role – he certainly makes Paul an unlikable lead, to the point where Da Queen really didn’t like this movie once. While my wife and I have nearly identical taste in movies, this is one instance where we disagreed somewhat significantly. I liked the movie precisely for the reason that she didn’t – because the filmmakers have the courage to present a lot of unlikable people in a situation that could easily be resolved but isn’t. Real life is often that way.

Maybe I can see a little bit of myself in Paul. I certainly am the sort who avoids conflicts whenever possible and I tend to let life walk all over me. My ambitions tend to be overridden by my shyness and I tend to need a bit of nagging to get moving on things I know have to get done. However I’m nowhere near as bad as Paul is in that regard – I can self-motivate and even if I do procrastinate on some things they do get done in a timely manner, just not in an instantaneous manner most of the time.

Personal identification aside, I can heartily recommend this movie because it is different and the filmmakers are showing how a simple situation can get complicated in a hurry. I admit that the movie has grown more on me than it did make an immediate positive impression and that may well be the case for you, but if you want to try something outside of the usual kind of movie this is a good place to start.

REASONS TO GO: Love the juxtaposition between the paranoid fantasy going on in Paul’s mind and the mundane reality.

REASONS TO STAY: Possibly one of the most frustratingly passive lead characters ever.

FAMILY VALUES:  There’s some brief violence, adult situations, a bit of sexuality and a modicum of expletives.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While the film is set in New Haven, it was mostly filmed in Brooklyn and other New York City locations.

CRITICAL MASS: There have been no reviews published for the film for either Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Dark Matter

FINAL RATING: 8/10

NEXT: Be Good and more 2013 Florida Film Festival coverage