One of my life objectives is to watch every single movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it. Since I saw him in a movie I've said I never finished watching ("State and Main"), I have been in love with his way of working; his body language and mostly his voice. While I may sound exaggerated, it's something I'm trying to do, and it gets me to peculiar places; like "Next Stop Wonderland".
Hoffman is not an important player in the film, even when he appears at the beginning. As Sean, he is dumping his girlfriend, Erin (Hope Davis), the most important player in the film. How the filmmakers have created Erin is remarkable. It had been a long time since I've seen a well-rounded character like this one. She's eccentric, tough, and now extremely depressed as abandoned by the man she loves. She spends her lonely days reading random phrases in a book written by her father. She loves that.
However, her elegant mother Piper (Holland Taylor) puts an ad in the newspaper, proposing a single, outgoing, charming and likable woman looking for a couple. "That's not me mom That's you!", Erin tells her mother gently. Now Erin finds herself with calls and messages from men whose ages start in 30 and end in 50; no advices from her gay friends.
Continuing, Erin encounters different guys in one bar, and they try to win her with metaphoric phrases, without knowing the authors she knows by heart; cultured comments she knows are clichéd, and in one case sweet talking that ends up in a wedding ring falling out of a wallet. This scene shows the comedic talent of director Brad Anderson, and his writing collaborator Lyn Vaus. They also show other talents, like the dramatic one, as they keep their characters realistic enough so we understand how they feel when things occur to them.
Some guys are making a bet to win Erin. One of them is Alan's (Alan Gelfant) brother. Although this seems like the other side of the world, it's in the same city where this Alan works in the aquarium as he studies to become wiser about that. He's already an old man, but is cultured as no one around him, and passionate about what he does (kind of like Erin, right?). Even when Erin and Alan are so similar; each of them doesn't know the other exists. They have crossed sometimes probably, but while Alan experiences a relationship with a younger girl that claims to love him, Erin is approached by every old guy in a bar and almost conquered by a Brazilian "Latin lover" But it doesn't seem right.
Brad Anderson loves his characters and when his camera moves fast at times and slowly at others, we sense he cares about his actors work. That's why Hope Davis shines in this role, which is comedic and different to what we usually get from her. Besides, she got into the park, and so did Alan Gelfant, who talks and looks like a young Sylvester Stallone but with more comedic gifts than the latter would ever dream of.
Don't bother yourself asking if these two characters belong together because thy do. But at 100 minutes of film, Brad Anderson stops in Wonderland and encounters the leads. But he is so original and so far away from typical film-making that he won't give you what you're expecting for, like everyone does. He will leave it to your imagination.
Hoffman is not an important player in the film, even when he appears at the beginning. As Sean, he is dumping his girlfriend, Erin (Hope Davis), the most important player in the film. How the filmmakers have created Erin is remarkable. It had been a long time since I've seen a well-rounded character like this one. She's eccentric, tough, and now extremely depressed as abandoned by the man she loves. She spends her lonely days reading random phrases in a book written by her father. She loves that.
However, her elegant mother Piper (Holland Taylor) puts an ad in the newspaper, proposing a single, outgoing, charming and likable woman looking for a couple. "That's not me mom That's you!", Erin tells her mother gently. Now Erin finds herself with calls and messages from men whose ages start in 30 and end in 50; no advices from her gay friends.
Continuing, Erin encounters different guys in one bar, and they try to win her with metaphoric phrases, without knowing the authors she knows by heart; cultured comments she knows are clichéd, and in one case sweet talking that ends up in a wedding ring falling out of a wallet. This scene shows the comedic talent of director Brad Anderson, and his writing collaborator Lyn Vaus. They also show other talents, like the dramatic one, as they keep their characters realistic enough so we understand how they feel when things occur to them.
Some guys are making a bet to win Erin. One of them is Alan's (Alan Gelfant) brother. Although this seems like the other side of the world, it's in the same city where this Alan works in the aquarium as he studies to become wiser about that. He's already an old man, but is cultured as no one around him, and passionate about what he does (kind of like Erin, right?). Even when Erin and Alan are so similar; each of them doesn't know the other exists. They have crossed sometimes probably, but while Alan experiences a relationship with a younger girl that claims to love him, Erin is approached by every old guy in a bar and almost conquered by a Brazilian "Latin lover" But it doesn't seem right.
Brad Anderson loves his characters and when his camera moves fast at times and slowly at others, we sense he cares about his actors work. That's why Hope Davis shines in this role, which is comedic and different to what we usually get from her. Besides, she got into the park, and so did Alan Gelfant, who talks and looks like a young Sylvester Stallone but with more comedic gifts than the latter would ever dream of.
Don't bother yourself asking if these two characters belong together because thy do. But at 100 minutes of film, Brad Anderson stops in Wonderland and encounters the leads. But he is so original and so far away from typical film-making that he won't give you what you're expecting for, like everyone does. He will leave it to your imagination.