What is the best way for a 40-ish man to stay single? To let it be known that he lives in the basement of his mother's home. Brian Landis Folkins is really superb as 40-ish single man David. His mother is 73 (actually pretty young, I say) and suffers from dementia so he takes care of her. That is his job, they live off Social Security and maybe some inheritance from his musician father that died almost 10 years earlier.
David is lonely and joins a matchmaking service, where you make a video (this is 1990) and look at videos of others. While at the office he comes across a tape "Rent-a-Pal" by Wil Wheaton as Andy. At some point it seems that Andy is not just a tape with appropriate pauses to let questions be answered, instead he comes to start interacting with David. Of course that would take some sort of magic, so I prefer to look at it as David's mind starting to trick him, Andy is no longer to him just an image and voice on tape.
The more the movie goes the more twisted it gets. At one point David in fact meets a female that seems to like him but he breaks off a date when Andy reminds him they are supposed to play cards, "go fish", that night. Anyway as things progress it gets to a point of no return, things don't end well for any of the characters. But it is entertaining for those of us who enjoy a quite different story.
I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped.
David is lonely and joins a matchmaking service, where you make a video (this is 1990) and look at videos of others. While at the office he comes across a tape "Rent-a-Pal" by Wil Wheaton as Andy. At some point it seems that Andy is not just a tape with appropriate pauses to let questions be answered, instead he comes to start interacting with David. Of course that would take some sort of magic, so I prefer to look at it as David's mind starting to trick him, Andy is no longer to him just an image and voice on tape.
The more the movie goes the more twisted it gets. At one point David in fact meets a female that seems to like him but he breaks off a date when Andy reminds him they are supposed to play cards, "go fish", that night. Anyway as things progress it gets to a point of no return, things don't end well for any of the characters. But it is entertaining for those of us who enjoy a quite different story.
I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped.