One of my favorite films, a French art film set and filmed in late '60s Los Angeles, directed by Jacques Demy and (co-)starring Anouk Aimee ("A Man and a Woman" (Un Homme et Une Femme")). Some points I think are salient:
1) It really makes you feel like you are there, experiencing (or at least witnessing) what the main character is experiencing. For anyone who was alive at the time (e.g., baby boomers), especially those who spent any time in California, it really takes you back. Just as 1961's "Something Wild" (with Carroll Baker) depicted a New York that no longer exists, "Model Shop" does something similar for late '60s L.A,
2) It also gives you a strong vicarious experience of a day in one's life when everything seems to be coming apart. I'm sure that many can relate.
3) Whereas most films and TV tend to overdramatize life, this one seems to miss it from the OTHER side. I found it an interesting change. Admittedly, one wonders how everyone in the film seems to really like and appreciate the main character when, on the surface at least, he doesn't seem to have all that much going for him. The film kind of begs the question, Can someone be TOO laid back? Yet, somehow George manages to make a sympathetic center.
4) Speaking of "Something Wild", both films have two distinguishable "halves": the first focused on the general situation faced by the main character, and the second on the change produced at a point of desperation by a chance encounter.
5) I thought that relatively minor and little-known actress (and subsequent poser for Playboy) Alexandra Hay gave a fairly striking performance as George's girlfriend.
I think that the film definitely qualifies as a "cult film" and, in my opinion, a small gem. Again, it's been one of my favorites since I first saw it on late-night broadcast TV just a few years after it was filmed. (I have no idea whether it had much of a theatrical release.) The DVD can found at discount websites.
1) It really makes you feel like you are there, experiencing (or at least witnessing) what the main character is experiencing. For anyone who was alive at the time (e.g., baby boomers), especially those who spent any time in California, it really takes you back. Just as 1961's "Something Wild" (with Carroll Baker) depicted a New York that no longer exists, "Model Shop" does something similar for late '60s L.A,
2) It also gives you a strong vicarious experience of a day in one's life when everything seems to be coming apart. I'm sure that many can relate.
3) Whereas most films and TV tend to overdramatize life, this one seems to miss it from the OTHER side. I found it an interesting change. Admittedly, one wonders how everyone in the film seems to really like and appreciate the main character when, on the surface at least, he doesn't seem to have all that much going for him. The film kind of begs the question, Can someone be TOO laid back? Yet, somehow George manages to make a sympathetic center.
4) Speaking of "Something Wild", both films have two distinguishable "halves": the first focused on the general situation faced by the main character, and the second on the change produced at a point of desperation by a chance encounter.
5) I thought that relatively minor and little-known actress (and subsequent poser for Playboy) Alexandra Hay gave a fairly striking performance as George's girlfriend.
I think that the film definitely qualifies as a "cult film" and, in my opinion, a small gem. Again, it's been one of my favorites since I first saw it on late-night broadcast TV just a few years after it was filmed. (I have no idea whether it had much of a theatrical release.) The DVD can found at discount websites.