Saw this at the Seattle Film Festival last night.
This film had all the appearance of something I would like, and it seemed like the director/producers had made a great effort to get me to like it (with some pretty blatant references to Charlie Kaufman, Wes Anderson etc.). But, unfortunately, it just fell flat. There was never any actual product placement in the film, it still felt somehow hollow and soulless; the result of an advertising campaign and not a genuine creative endeavor. It was a very calculated sorted of indie-ness, quirky for the sake of being quirky.
Though I didn't happen to see the original webisodes this is based on I did watch Meet The Lucky Ones which I liked a lot more. I think that may have been a much better format for this material. There just wasn't enough here for a whole film, and at feature length the theatricality of the thing - the stilted dialog, broad acting - just became grating. I felt very removed from it all and never connected with any of the characters.
The story has some strong similarities to Stranger Than Fiction, and I had expected to enjoy this "indie" take on the same premise a lot more, but found it far inferior.
At least the soundtrack by Stephin Merrit/The Magnetic Fields was excellent.
This film had all the appearance of something I would like, and it seemed like the director/producers had made a great effort to get me to like it (with some pretty blatant references to Charlie Kaufman, Wes Anderson etc.). But, unfortunately, it just fell flat. There was never any actual product placement in the film, it still felt somehow hollow and soulless; the result of an advertising campaign and not a genuine creative endeavor. It was a very calculated sorted of indie-ness, quirky for the sake of being quirky.
Though I didn't happen to see the original webisodes this is based on I did watch Meet The Lucky Ones which I liked a lot more. I think that may have been a much better format for this material. There just wasn't enough here for a whole film, and at feature length the theatricality of the thing - the stilted dialog, broad acting - just became grating. I felt very removed from it all and never connected with any of the characters.
The story has some strong similarities to Stranger Than Fiction, and I had expected to enjoy this "indie" take on the same premise a lot more, but found it far inferior.
At least the soundtrack by Stephin Merrit/The Magnetic Fields was excellent.