First of all, I have never read the book; this review is based purely on a number of viewings of the film.
Reasons to like this film:
1. Simon McBurney (Robert Freign). The only character worth caring about, mainly because he does not have a lot to say.
Reasons to dislike it (or at least, reasons I was disappointed):
1. The characters, apart from covering a good range of stereotypes, are insufferably pretentious, irritating and unsympathetic (in particular the characters of Beth, Art and Jo). From start to finish I could not bring myself to care what happened to them. Everyone is gay or lesbian, everyone is sleeping with at least two different people at any one time, and everyone is either a rich art dealer/buyer or a struggling "artist". It gets boring very quickly.
2. The script reads like a check-list of clichés. Lines and situations are casually thrown in without, it seems, even an attempt at originality. An example is a scene that takes place in a posh restaurant. Two of the richer characters are served by a "foreign" (read Eastern European) waitress who does not understand, conveniently setting it up for the lines: "What is that? Hungarian?" -- "Polish, I think". The entire screenplay feels forced, contrived and timeworn.
The storyline, while it appears to be making a clear point - to wit, "the art world" is shallow and requires a hard heart to handle it - does little more than go around in circles repeating the same message in an all too obvious way.
3. It seems as though the creators were unsure about whether to make the film in a documentary style or otherwise, and got stuck somewhere in the middle. Therefore the film feels disjointed, as if whole chunks of action and repetitive dialogue were filmed and then thrown together in a random order.
All in all it is disappointing, because one look at the cast for this film - while the subject matter might have been interesting and dramatic if better handled - and you would be forgiven for assuming that Boogie Woogie ought to be better. Unfortunately, a choice cast is completely wasted.
Reasons to like this film:
1. Simon McBurney (Robert Freign). The only character worth caring about, mainly because he does not have a lot to say.
Reasons to dislike it (or at least, reasons I was disappointed):
1. The characters, apart from covering a good range of stereotypes, are insufferably pretentious, irritating and unsympathetic (in particular the characters of Beth, Art and Jo). From start to finish I could not bring myself to care what happened to them. Everyone is gay or lesbian, everyone is sleeping with at least two different people at any one time, and everyone is either a rich art dealer/buyer or a struggling "artist". It gets boring very quickly.
2. The script reads like a check-list of clichés. Lines and situations are casually thrown in without, it seems, even an attempt at originality. An example is a scene that takes place in a posh restaurant. Two of the richer characters are served by a "foreign" (read Eastern European) waitress who does not understand, conveniently setting it up for the lines: "What is that? Hungarian?" -- "Polish, I think". The entire screenplay feels forced, contrived and timeworn.
The storyline, while it appears to be making a clear point - to wit, "the art world" is shallow and requires a hard heart to handle it - does little more than go around in circles repeating the same message in an all too obvious way.
3. It seems as though the creators were unsure about whether to make the film in a documentary style or otherwise, and got stuck somewhere in the middle. Therefore the film feels disjointed, as if whole chunks of action and repetitive dialogue were filmed and then thrown together in a random order.
All in all it is disappointing, because one look at the cast for this film - while the subject matter might have been interesting and dramatic if better handled - and you would be forgiven for assuming that Boogie Woogie ought to be better. Unfortunately, a choice cast is completely wasted.