A bad writer should never try to do a movie about a good, well-known writer. That's like a jinx, or ironic tomfoolery, or whatever you wanna call it. In fact, a bad writer shouldn't write anything, period. Obviously.
In a Finney documentary this movie was referred to as a commercial flop, then the narrator proceeded to mention something about how important good promotion is, and that this movie didn't get it. Certainly Finney had complained that the movie failed because of this. Not because it stinks: that had never occurred to him as a possibility. Or in this case a definite 100% reason why it flopped.
Two things. First, this movie didn't deserve a good promotion, in case it never got a proper one. The studio must have realized that Finney delivered an egg and refused to dig their financial hole even deeper so they just gave up on it. Second, that's certainly a feeble excuse for why the movie flopped. There is no story, and it's quite boring most of the time, plus it has no point to make. The only things going for it are the era in which it was made and Liza Minnelli whose cheeriness doesn't suit the film at all (yet helps it anyway, whatever little it can). Yet even this advantage only materialized decades later, after this movie gained significance (if we can call it that) for its 60s mood i.e. Historical value.
What actor-director Finney tried to achieve here was the laid-back "realism" and tone of the French New Wave combined with a bit of then-innovative/new English kitchen-sink drama. What I'm saying is, he pretentiously tried to film an arty drama, one of those films only festival hipsters can get wet over, which neatly explains why there is no plot. "Writer visits his old town and ex wife." That's it. There's nothing more than that. Nothing. Their interaction is uninteresting, nothing happens. This is worse than watching grass grow because while grass grows various bugs in it kill each other. That's something. This is nothing. No bugs, nothing at all. Just Mancunian grass.
It's so boring that whoever wrote the synopsis didn't even bother to listen to what was being said: the description here states that Finney is married. He isn't. He is visiting his ex wife hence Minnelli doesn't play a mistress, as she is described.
Very nice opening credits transport very well the mood of the late 60s. (I don't mean the bloody student riots, I mean the overall atmosphere. To me the late 60s aren't (just) about whiny, spoiled, clueless, naïve, middle-class students egged on by Kremlin's propaganda and their Marxist professors, trying to stir trouble in the West. To me that era represents something else.) Unfortunately, that's where the good stuff begins and immediately ends. The following 20 minutes is some pointless rubbish, with Finney and his annoying/dumb/dull friend being drunk and daft. The "food fight" is complete and utter nonsense: it's cringe cinema, not "rebellion". Completely irrelevant to the story, utterly boring, unfunny, hence 100% useless and drab. So far the movie's been quite bad. Will it improve?
No. Because afterwards there's an odd section with Finney acting like a Bond villain, standing in front of a bunch of surveillance screens, being all grumpy, while observing nothing happen. (Minnelli talking to the drunk slob is literally yet more of nothing.) Apparently, Finney's character as a writer earns millions upon millions upon millions (working for British TV, hilarious), so he can afford to install such surveillance, at a time when this was very expensive. Nor are we told WHY he has it. It's just there, to make the film more "arty".
Then it turns to a road movie... in which, you guessed it, nothing happens. A boring military character approaches Finney and Minnelli for no apparent reason, and for no apparent reason they take him along. But not before a family, or whatever, enter the diner, some unknown/irrelevant characters who say nothing remotely interesting and very little that helps the non-existent plot. In fact, the entire "dialog", if we can call it that, is random and meaningless. If anyone ever aimed to write a flop, intentionally, this is how they would have done it. Maybe this film was a tax write-off or something, and Finney was trolling us all? Not an impossibility, considering that the opening scene is a conversation about finance and evading taxes...
Then in the car Minnelli places her head on Finney's shoulder while the military guy touches her hair. Totally absurd. No, I have no idea what the hell's going on, but that's been known to happen while I waste my time on bad movies devoid of plots.
Meanwhile, Finney is constantly grumpy for whatever reason, almost expressionless. Perhaps he underestimated how stressful directing a movie was (especially when you're also in it), even if it is just a tax write-off, so he just ended up looking grumpy throughout the shoot, on the screen and possibly off it too. This doesn't exactly help the already badly conceived film. If the script is rubbish, there's no plot, the protagonist is one-note, and the director is unhappy with the workload - then there's no hope left, is there.
Even when he takes Minnelli's bra off, he is grumpy and unmotivated. Is this guy suicidal? If so, we certainly get no explanation for it, nor any concrete hints later on. Nor are we informed whether he started an affair with Liza at the hotel or whether this had been already ongoing. I certainly wasn't able to tell. But hey, if the movie prefers not to tell us anything, and that includes a story and all the details a story entails, there's little I can do about it, aside from press STOP. But I didn't wanna do that because I was curious if the writer of this claptrap actually dared go the entire distance without telling us anything and with nothing happening. I wanted to know just how bold this lazy amateur was.
He did dare.
How come everybody recognizes Finney? He plays a writer not an actor.
Then CB ends with a spontaneous trip in a balloon. How "arty". Godard would have been proud.
Or not. Godard would have criticized the movie for lacking "revolutionary zeal" and for having "too much plot, which is so passé and bourgeois". So really, this movie is neither good for film fans nor for hipsters. It's a tax write-off. It's meant to be unappealing.
In a Finney documentary this movie was referred to as a commercial flop, then the narrator proceeded to mention something about how important good promotion is, and that this movie didn't get it. Certainly Finney had complained that the movie failed because of this. Not because it stinks: that had never occurred to him as a possibility. Or in this case a definite 100% reason why it flopped.
Two things. First, this movie didn't deserve a good promotion, in case it never got a proper one. The studio must have realized that Finney delivered an egg and refused to dig their financial hole even deeper so they just gave up on it. Second, that's certainly a feeble excuse for why the movie flopped. There is no story, and it's quite boring most of the time, plus it has no point to make. The only things going for it are the era in which it was made and Liza Minnelli whose cheeriness doesn't suit the film at all (yet helps it anyway, whatever little it can). Yet even this advantage only materialized decades later, after this movie gained significance (if we can call it that) for its 60s mood i.e. Historical value.
What actor-director Finney tried to achieve here was the laid-back "realism" and tone of the French New Wave combined with a bit of then-innovative/new English kitchen-sink drama. What I'm saying is, he pretentiously tried to film an arty drama, one of those films only festival hipsters can get wet over, which neatly explains why there is no plot. "Writer visits his old town and ex wife." That's it. There's nothing more than that. Nothing. Their interaction is uninteresting, nothing happens. This is worse than watching grass grow because while grass grows various bugs in it kill each other. That's something. This is nothing. No bugs, nothing at all. Just Mancunian grass.
It's so boring that whoever wrote the synopsis didn't even bother to listen to what was being said: the description here states that Finney is married. He isn't. He is visiting his ex wife hence Minnelli doesn't play a mistress, as she is described.
Very nice opening credits transport very well the mood of the late 60s. (I don't mean the bloody student riots, I mean the overall atmosphere. To me the late 60s aren't (just) about whiny, spoiled, clueless, naïve, middle-class students egged on by Kremlin's propaganda and their Marxist professors, trying to stir trouble in the West. To me that era represents something else.) Unfortunately, that's where the good stuff begins and immediately ends. The following 20 minutes is some pointless rubbish, with Finney and his annoying/dumb/dull friend being drunk and daft. The "food fight" is complete and utter nonsense: it's cringe cinema, not "rebellion". Completely irrelevant to the story, utterly boring, unfunny, hence 100% useless and drab. So far the movie's been quite bad. Will it improve?
No. Because afterwards there's an odd section with Finney acting like a Bond villain, standing in front of a bunch of surveillance screens, being all grumpy, while observing nothing happen. (Minnelli talking to the drunk slob is literally yet more of nothing.) Apparently, Finney's character as a writer earns millions upon millions upon millions (working for British TV, hilarious), so he can afford to install such surveillance, at a time when this was very expensive. Nor are we told WHY he has it. It's just there, to make the film more "arty".
Then it turns to a road movie... in which, you guessed it, nothing happens. A boring military character approaches Finney and Minnelli for no apparent reason, and for no apparent reason they take him along. But not before a family, or whatever, enter the diner, some unknown/irrelevant characters who say nothing remotely interesting and very little that helps the non-existent plot. In fact, the entire "dialog", if we can call it that, is random and meaningless. If anyone ever aimed to write a flop, intentionally, this is how they would have done it. Maybe this film was a tax write-off or something, and Finney was trolling us all? Not an impossibility, considering that the opening scene is a conversation about finance and evading taxes...
Then in the car Minnelli places her head on Finney's shoulder while the military guy touches her hair. Totally absurd. No, I have no idea what the hell's going on, but that's been known to happen while I waste my time on bad movies devoid of plots.
Meanwhile, Finney is constantly grumpy for whatever reason, almost expressionless. Perhaps he underestimated how stressful directing a movie was (especially when you're also in it), even if it is just a tax write-off, so he just ended up looking grumpy throughout the shoot, on the screen and possibly off it too. This doesn't exactly help the already badly conceived film. If the script is rubbish, there's no plot, the protagonist is one-note, and the director is unhappy with the workload - then there's no hope left, is there.
Even when he takes Minnelli's bra off, he is grumpy and unmotivated. Is this guy suicidal? If so, we certainly get no explanation for it, nor any concrete hints later on. Nor are we informed whether he started an affair with Liza at the hotel or whether this had been already ongoing. I certainly wasn't able to tell. But hey, if the movie prefers not to tell us anything, and that includes a story and all the details a story entails, there's little I can do about it, aside from press STOP. But I didn't wanna do that because I was curious if the writer of this claptrap actually dared go the entire distance without telling us anything and with nothing happening. I wanted to know just how bold this lazy amateur was.
He did dare.
How come everybody recognizes Finney? He plays a writer not an actor.
Then CB ends with a spontaneous trip in a balloon. How "arty". Godard would have been proud.
Or not. Godard would have criticized the movie for lacking "revolutionary zeal" and for having "too much plot, which is so passé and bourgeois". So really, this movie is neither good for film fans nor for hipsters. It's a tax write-off. It's meant to be unappealing.