Silver Tongues (2011) User Reviews

Entertainment through emptiness and awkwardness

[filmbizarro · 7/10 · 10 April 2013]

Plot: Two traveling lovers make occasional stops here and there to do what they enjoy the most: play games with people. They manipulate people into the strangest of things, from ruining a honey moon to trying to trick money off of an old man.

Our thoughts: One of the strongest emotions I can get out of a movie is awkwardness, or if you will - feeling uncomfortable overall. It beats being scared or grossed out any day of the week, when you're put into an everyday situation gone awry. There's an intimacy in feeling awkward and uncomfortable from a movie, you kinda squirm in your seat and have an urge to turn it off just so you can take a breather. "Silver Tongues" did not have THAT strong of an effect, but this is the sort of atmosphere you get from the movie. The awkward, realistic drama that could go anywhere in seconds and you can't do anything about it.

It starts with a couple on their honeymoon, getting ready to go to dinner. When they arrive there's a long wait for a free table, but a nice couple invite them to sit at theirs. They agree, and a quiet night of talking and laughing begins. Soon they start sharing intimate details about each other, and before too soon there's a strange vibe and lust in the air. The second couple admitted to being swingers and this put thoughts in motion in the minds of the honeymooners, who first tried to change subject. But the swingers manipulates them into a fight with each other to get what they want. To keep this spoiler free, the night doesn't end here. Later on the swinging couple leaves to find new people to manipulate, from claiming that a priest stole money, to telling old people they are their children.

The movie really makes use of the idea of two lovers going around manipulating and tricking people. In fact, that's what the entire movie is. After a while you start wondering when the story will develop further, and especially if you're gonna get to know the real lovers more. It takes a while, but it gets there. With every person they manipulate you get a sense of who these two are, the woman especially. Between their games, they have their own games of rough sexual acts. You puzzle together what you get from their personalities, but it's hard to truly know who they are since most of the movie is an act. Sometimes you feel a vulnerability, a crack in their act, but you can never really know if it's part of the act or not. In the first half of the movie this bothered me, but then I really fell into it and couldn't stop watching it. I kept trying to find these little signs of their true selves.

"Silver Tongues" thrives on awkwardness and the viewer feeling bad for the acts that they do. Especially when they get to the old people home and trick the elderly that they are their children. You can't help but feel like you are part of the blame. And why is that? It's because the actors, Lee Tergesen and Enid Graham, are really selling their characters. They seem humane, but their acts are so cruel that you have no idea what they are capable of. Clearly a solid script and careful directing by Simon Arthur, I still have to commend the two leads for their terrific performances.

Not a perfect experience, I can still say that "Silver Tongues" is a great movie. It's repetitive in that it's mostly about a couple playing tricks on people, and after a while you start to wonder what the core of the movie actually is. After a while it lets you into the characters a bit more, and straight away it's a much more interesting movie. It's a movie that can often make you feel empty and, as I said before, awkward, but it's not afraid to make entertainment out of their tricks at times too. The entire church scene is quite entertaining more than uncomfortable, and I think the balance is important. It's just a good watch that I definitely recommend to drama/thriller fans.

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Worth seeing on the basis of Tergesen and Graham's performances alone

[bob_meg · 8/10 · 5 May 2013]

Simon Arthur expanded his 2007 short about two lovers who travel place to place, almost randomly, wrecking peoples lives and inflicting emotional cruelty upon them. While this idea is a good one --- it's been favorably (and accurately) compared to Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men" --- it doesn't satisfy us the way that film did. It still feels at the end of the runtime as a bit of a nihilistic let-down.

The film almost works better as a quartet of short films all stapled together. Every single one of these vignettes is tight as a drum and very absorbing: they suck you in with the vacuum of a veteran con artist playing short-change tricks on you at a bar.

That the core of the film is held together with icy nimbleness by TV vets Lee Tergesen (Red Widow, The Big C, Army Wives) and Enid Graham (Gray's Anatomy, Boardwalk Empire) is both shocking and exciting. One doesn't expect the broad range and elasticity their performances bubble over with. Tergesen is blessed with a neutral, almost banal affect that reminds you of Bill Pullman's knack for portraying casually moral-less characters and Graham wears an almost eerily poker-faced mask throughout, lustily daring you to read her thoughts, and then laughing disdainfully at you when you make the mistake of attempting it.

If you like suspenseful drama pieces and plays, don't miss this one. It has all of the elements of vintage LaBute or David Mamet. It will make you think and stay with you, even if it doesn't quite gel into the cohesiveness that might otherwise render it a classic.

Who voted this so low?

[myamericanjunk · 7/10 · 16 February 2013]

Its dark creepy original and yes lacking talent sometimes but still at least a7 compared to a lot of indie sundance bonding two people forming a relationship mumbo jumbo vomit that people waste their lives producing, making. This better than that stuff. This is probably one of the best love stories written in a long time. This should be remade with better actors though. Not pretty actors just better. They also need a better soundtrack like something off drive album. None of this indie sundance chime and bells softy stuff that makes real men vomit and real women yawn. Reminds of crash by cronenberg slash the sci fi writer - not Gibson - the other dude. I want to play games too now. This movie makes me want to play so bad! Did u see that butt in the first sequence. Oh man.

Totally threw me, ha!

[jonkeller878 · 9/10 · 5 June 2012]

It's kind of hard to talk about this film without spoilers, but it's great to watch something where I had NO idea what it was going to do next. I can almost always say with a film, "Okay, one of two things is going to happen here at the ending", and it always does. I had no idea how things were going to pan out here, and what did was mind-blowing!

Its obviously low budget, and there's a couple of scenes which don't work as well as others, but overall it's great, and Lee Tergesen gives my favorite performance of the year so far. I love Oz and Generation Kill, but it bums me out that he doesn't do more films. Hopefully this'll help.

Excellent and enthralling.

[jramills · 10/10 · 20 February 2012]

Having seen the original incarnation of this, back when it screened with Simon's other short "Rebel Song", I was intrigued and excited to see how it had evolved into a full-length feature - filmed in a different country and with new lead actors.

"Silver Tongues" is deserving of all the high critical praise and festival awards it has garnered, being - as it is - an engaging thriller that keeps you constantly guessing, and with a pay-off that tells you enough but no more. It drew me in to such an extent that I was genuinely surprised when it ended, its running time having flown by.

As an intelligent, witty, captivating story, it is very hard to fault. If you get the chance to see it, do so.

blew my mind

[jalbion-312-24014 · 9/10 · 8 March 2012]

I saw this movie at Slamdance last year and maybe it was my hangover, but I remember thinking HURRY UP in the first section because it seemed a little tame, but then came the biggest sucker punch a movie's dealt me in years. I won't say what happens cause it'll be a spoiler, but the whole movie just dragged me off into the night and blew my mind. I loved every minute of it. Sure, it's low budge and there's a couple of things that could be better (the police station looks like a set), but I've really never seen anything like this film. When I was younger and I watched indie films, they used to surprise, shock and excite me, and that rarely seems to happen anymore. I cannot wait to see this movie again, I just wish it'd come out on DVD quicker!!

Nice Surprise

[fargoesto11 · 10/10 · 15 September 2012]

Silver Tongues is a film that captures your attention from the start and does not release it till the very end! Dark, tense and very ironic, it is one of the most original plots I have ever seen on screen.The story follows a man and a woman as they go around testing the human condition and making people question themselves, their beliefs, and those they profess to know. The road of destruction that they carve causes the audience to wonder where they will turn next and what fate they will fall victim to. The acting is amazing and the story is constantly keeping you guessing what will happen next even though it is impossible to even start finding out what the next move is. I highly recommend it!

One of the better films of 2011

[a-nixon-2 · 9/10 · 9 March 2012]

Silver Tongues is a deeply engaging psychological thriller about characters operating outside the rules of civilized discourse. Why do they do it? Why not? I came upon this film without warning at the Annapolis Prentious Film Society screening, and felt that it was better than nearly every other film I saw in 2011. If we're going to nominate 9 films for best picture, Silver Tongues should have been one of them.

Lee Tergesen is a superb actor, and this script allows him to explore all of the crazy stuff that must be lurking in his subconscious. Enid Graham is sexy and just as in touch with the outrageous. The script is well structured, with a lot of engaging subtext. Independent cinema at its best.

Silver tongued devils

[fathersonholygore · 10/10 · 11 May 2013]

Lee Tergesen and Enid Graham play two fantastic roles in Silver Tongues, and I was absolutely blown away with their performances from start to finish. First, their characters, Gerry and Joan seem to almost slip into the film, as if they were to be supporting actors; quickly, you realize these two are quite slippery. We follow Gerry and Joan, a husband and wife, who like to play games with people, to test their resolve; maybe it's because they're awful people, or maybe it's because they're just two actors walking through life playing the various roles that fall upon them, or maybe they're testing people in the things they're missing within themselves. They go from place to place on a road trip, and mess with the lives of people, but not always in a malicious way; one of their 'capers' brings them to a church where Joan begins a witch hunt accusing the female priest of stealing money from the collection plate, but eventually Gerry turns it into the congregation donating more money to it, and ending up to stand fiercely beside their priest, who before that day they had never once doubted in any way.

There are many ways to interpret this film. Many people feel the scene in the woods where Gerry believes he has done the unthinkable to Joan is in fact what happened without any other explanation. I think Gerry and Joan acted it all out just as they did their other roles; Gerry even professes to the police woman who interrogates him that he is an actor playing a cop in a play where he investigates the murder of a woman who was strangled. Every moment (particularly one just as Gerry is left alone in the interrogation room) you can see both Gerry and Joan playing their roles, acting it out with method-like precision, and manipulating everyone around them. Their role playing is all about making people question themselves, their decisions, their beliefs. Perhaps it's because they don't know themselves. At the very end, as they return home from their little road trip, we see exactly who they are, and maybe that's what leads us to a conclusion. Gerry and Joan are looking for something, and maybe they haven't even found it yet themselves, but they're searching; who knows how many trips they take like this, how often, or how far they go on them. One thing is for sure, that these two individuals have a strangely unique bond, and are both daring enough to let it go to the edges of madness.

One other thing- there are definitely some awkward parts, as some have said, but they work so well. I particularly enjoyed the kiss Joan gave one old man when they visited a retirement home because it fit quite perfectly, even if it felt a little strange to watch.

I give this film a solid 10 out of 10 because the script was great, the story progressed nicely (I never felt bored), and once again, the two leads are amazing! I am a general fan of Lee Tergesen, but he definitely puts in one of his best performances here. Shame this doesn't have a higher rating. However, I try not to pay too close attention to ratings here on this site, as many don't know how to objectively review a film.