CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN - 2005
Directed by Hans Canosa, Starring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart.
Someone I recently met told me I would love this movie. I take these comments seriously and I don't know why. Even people I know for years don't know what movies I'll like, let alone this dude I knew for all of a week. Regardless, apparently, I went to go see Conversations with Other Women with my movie date friend, along with another friend I hadn't seen in a year. Laying my credibility on the line, all for an off-hand remark.
It may be obvious at this point that I didn't LOVE the movie. It wasn't terrible, but certain things about this movie are ingredients for cinematic failure. Now I shall list them. 1. Split screen. Ok, I get it, this was the Whole Point, right? That was the magic of the concept? Mmmhmm. I disagree. Split screen is spectacle. It's hard enough to suspend your belief for an on-screen attempt at reality that mimics your singular-perspective vision. It's downright impossible to attach yourself to a story if you don't know where to look. Just watch Timecode. No nonono don't watch it. Sorry. Just think about it if you've already had the error in judgement. 2. Flashback. Note: not all flashbacks are movie poison. But these were: younger versions of the two characters acting out the dramas their present selves discuss. Canosa, I have an imagination. Thanks for the help, but the flashbacks were annoying speed bumps. 3. The Trick. It was no M. Night Wacky Carpet Yanker, but slowly, over the last half of the movie, you realize that you were being led astray the WHOLE TIME. I thought it would have been much more interesting/less frustrating if instead of leading up to this one truth, that all of the situations could have been true. That she was a stranger, a one night stand, a lover, a wife, etc. Alas. I just don't like being psyched out, when there were no clues to the truth. 4. Adjacent title. Booo. Or... maybe I missed something?
My Advice: Watch Before Sunrise instead. Better dualing script, a plot with depth, one screen... If nothing else, Julie Delpy's hair won't be a third character cough cough like Carter's cough cough...
