Breaking and Entering
May 10th, 2007
Jude Law looks a lot better when he’s lit by the Mediterranean sun, wearing a striped t-shirt, and steering a sail boat than in a suit and tie under phosphorescent lights in a London architect’s office. This is only one of the many lessons to be drawn from Anthony Mighella’s first feature as sole writer/director since Truly Madly Deeply (1991). He was better off adapting Ondaatje and Highsmith: the convoluted, contrived plot of this class struggle/domestic relationship psychobabble adultery crapfest is almost as lame as the dialogue. Juliette Binoche (hampered by a Sophie grade Eastern European accent) and Robin Wright Penn manage occasional moments of grace, but it’s Vera Farmiga, in her all-too brief scenes as a thieving King’s Cross hooker, who gives the hackneyed proceedings the only glimpses of real vitality.
Breaking and Entering. Anthony Minghella, 2006. *
Flannel Pajamas
April 19th, 2007
Dullsville. In Jeff Lipsky’s story of a marriage, talk talk talk does not add up to plot or character. Justin Kirk and Julianne Nicholson play thoroughly unremarkable people doing thoroughly unremarkable things; then they break up. Occasional gestures toward kitchen sink realism are undermined by clumsy, overwritten dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere and leaves us feeling nothing. Who are these people, and who cares? Justin Kirk is wasted; Flannel Pajamas is 124 minutes long.
Flannel Pajamas. Jeff Lipsky, 2006. *
- Very mixed reception on Rotten Tomatoes: 55%
- Andrew O’Hehir adored it
