I'm afraid I'm not going to join the gush parade for this movie.
The performances are good, Eve and Margo are well-done characters, and the ending is like something out of the Twilight Zone, but the movie also has a number of shortcomings.
It's very talky -- nothing but talk, hardly a moment of silence. The dialogue seems more stagey than natural. The characters don't converse so much as declaim or emote. The dialogue doesn't seem witty as some have claimed, just bitter and cynical (for the most part).
The visuals aren't very visual. The shots are mostly ordinary shots of whoever's talking at the moment. There's little character movement. This could easily have been a radio play.
The relationship between Margo and boyfriend seems contrived. There's no apparent reason why they should be so attached to each other. It doesn't come across. In fact, they seem quite unattached to each other initially, but the movie changes its mind abruptly in midcourse.
I'll confess a bias against actors acting about acting. It's the kind of self-referential, self-reverential stuff that bugs me, like news reporters reporting on each other instead of the news, or playwrights writing plays about plays. It smacks of taking oneself far too seriously. (Okay, it's a pet peeve, but there you go.)
But despite these shortcomings, it's still worth watching to the end.
The performances are good, Eve and Margo are well-done characters, and the ending is like something out of the Twilight Zone, but the movie also has a number of shortcomings.
It's very talky -- nothing but talk, hardly a moment of silence. The dialogue seems more stagey than natural. The characters don't converse so much as declaim or emote. The dialogue doesn't seem witty as some have claimed, just bitter and cynical (for the most part).
The visuals aren't very visual. The shots are mostly ordinary shots of whoever's talking at the moment. There's little character movement. This could easily have been a radio play.
The relationship between Margo and boyfriend seems contrived. There's no apparent reason why they should be so attached to each other. It doesn't come across. In fact, they seem quite unattached to each other initially, but the movie changes its mind abruptly in midcourse.
I'll confess a bias against actors acting about acting. It's the kind of self-referential, self-reverential stuff that bugs me, like news reporters reporting on each other instead of the news, or playwrights writing plays about plays. It smacks of taking oneself far too seriously. (Okay, it's a pet peeve, but there you go.)
But despite these shortcomings, it's still worth watching to the end.