Points off for the soppy drama and for sticking your talent-free daughter/niece into the movie.
8 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Gugino, Palicki, Britton and Chriqui. Nice! But then, also Isabelle Gutierrez. Oh no. Nepotism deals another blow.

Not one, not two, not three, but four terrific-looking, sexy actresses in this one, and that's reason alone to watch almost any movie. After all, who wants to see Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Kathy Bates and Anjelica Huston in some damn overrated chick-flick-masquerading-as-deep-drama garbage? Not me. I'd rather see Palicki, Britton, Gugino and Chriqui - in just about anything (or preferably out of it).

I do have some beef though with the utterly inane casting of Britton's daughter. Does Connie look like she could possibly give birth to THAT? One look at Isabelle and you just know she's a nepotistically infiltrated stink-bomb of the worst kind. The kid can't act to save her chubby, thin-lipped life, and looks more like something that would spring out of the fawlty loins of a Laura Dern or Jennifer Aniston than a freckled beauty like Britton.

Isabelle Gutierrez, to be exact. Guess who wrote/directed/produced WIT? Sebastian Gutierrez. Just like an incurable optimist to cast his own daughter/niece/whatever, hoping to launch a huge but unlaunchable Hollywood career. This girl doesn't have a shot in Hell. In order to make it looking like that (and acting like a rank amateur), she'd need to be no less than the love-child of Stevie Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. That's the only kind of nepotism that would guarantee her a film career. In fact, the result of such an unholy union would guarantee ANYONE a film career, no matter how bad they are or what they look like.

Seb, if you're going to make the fatal error of casting your robotic, wooden-faced, non-expressive, apathetic daughter/niece/whatever in a major film, you might at least make an effort in helping her understand that when she plays the young daughter/niece of a badly-wounded film character that she ought to show at least a smidgen of emotion related to having a close family member lying hurt in a hospital. Capito? Isabelle reacts without emotion to having her mother/aunt lying in hospital all banged up, and yet only minutes later the director expects us to get emotionally involved in a scene in which Britton prepares to announce to Isabelle that she is her mother. If Isabelle didn't care about her "former" mother's car-crash then how the Hell will she care about who her real mother is! Duh.

Speaking of nepotism, Josh Brolin. Josh Brolin doing an English accent. Need I even mention how horrible he's done it? I just did. Josh Brolin getting knocked off only 5 minutes after his first appearance: now, that was a nice touch. I was afraid I might have to watch him for an extensive period, as a major character in this rather enjoyable (semi-)comedy – which would then have become significantly less enjoyable had his presence extended beyond those mercifully short minutes (made a little sweeter through that blond actress).

Although all four above-mentioned beauties are very good in WIT, I would stick out Adrienne Palicki, with her funny portrayal of a semi-retarded porno actress. Plus, in spite of being much taller than the other three, she managed to come off as the cutest one. Very tall yet cute? Not a mean feat by any means. Producers should be hyping Palicki, showering her with movie offers right now, instead of focusing all their undivided attention on the promotion of various mediocre nepotistic offspring such as Olivia Wilde or Zooey Dechanel. But that's how cinema and TV work; you scratch my kid's back, I scratch your kid's back. All in the family, and right into the sewer goes the quality.

It's unfortunate that Gutierrez chose to let the comedy take a backseat to schmaltzy, totally needless drama. Seb, if you stick 4-5 beauties into a movie then that means you're catering to a MALE audience, not a female one. Sticking women no-one wants to see, such as Streep, Close or Dern - THAT would be targeting a female audience, and then you could make it all drama as far as I'm concerned (coz I wouldn't' watch it anyway, obviously). Your male viewers don't want soppy drama, they want something a little more entertaining and intelligent than that. (Yes, even f**t jokes are more intellectually stimulating than a woman crying in front of the camera.)

The last third of WIT sees the movie coming to a standstill almost, with a lot of tiresome sobbing and needless hugging. This, and Isabelle Gutierrez, are the reasons I rated WIT lower than I otherwise would have. .
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