Reviews

This is neither a recommendation nor a warning. It takes a lot of internal debate before you can decide whether you liked the film or not. The film goes like this: Nothing much happens, nothing much happens, nothing much happens, nothing much happens, something quickly happens, and then it is over. Yet during the nothing much happens period, you cannot look away. The film holds you. Don't know why. If there is any building sense of dread that something bad is going to happen, the characters don't show it. They are one steady bunch. You just assume something is going to happen because a) this is a movie; and b) the constant references to opera and constant use of opera music make you think there is going to be some sort of Greek tragedy event. So you wait and wait and wait.

When the event does finally happen, it too is a headscratcher, i.e., you ask yourself if that character would really do that. And then you have to grapple with what happens to that character in the aftermath. It offends moral sense--but do you still like the movie? Don't know. Good luck working on that.

For persons knowledgeable about opera, there may be more layers of this film to enjoy. Don't know. For lovers of Woody Allen films, you may wonder if you rented the right movie. Nothing typically Woody Allen here.

This is one of those films that is marketed as a comedy, makes attempts to be a comedy, but ultimately feels as if, originally, it was something else. Like trying to make a garage into a house. As a comedy it has a few moments, so it could work as mindless entertainment. But there are also a lot of serious things and themes going on, and these work against the film being mindless entertainment. But none of these are examined with any depth. Likely, the film makers didn't want the film to be too heavy, just bittersweet. The end result is a mugwump of a film. And the marketers took the easy route of pretending it was a comedy.

Jennifer Aniston remains her Friends character here; she is just behaving in some difficult to understand ways. Why would this smart, classy, charming character consort with a killer who comes up with the sleaziest, most dangerous shakedown scam possible? Love? Pretty hard to believe. But no other clues or explanations are provided. And why do the two criminal masterminds do such a poor job of hiding their tracks? They continue using the same locations to conduct their shakedowns. Further, the shakedowns rely on some pretty risky assumptions: a) that they will be able to knock-out but not kill or seriously debilitate the victim; b) that the victim will not fight to the death; c) that the victim will not do something to attract the attention of others, e.g., yell out the window; and d) most preposterously, the victim will not go to the police on his own. Movies of this type often rely on such shaky leaps, but here it is just too much. Clive Owen's character would rather jeopardize the life of his daughter (the payoff money was earmarked for her medical care) and cover up the murder of his friend just so that Jennifer Aniston's character doesn't have to face the possibility of divorce. No way. Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston's character has no protection other than these assumptions. Once the scam has started, she has to sit at an office, pretending to be someone she is not, and where the victim knows where to find her, for days, even weeks. She must have spent every day sweating. When the victim came to see her, it would only have taken one co-worker to call her by her real name, and the scam would have been up. And if the victim had had the good sense to go to the police, Aniston would have been a sitting duck. Really a poorly put together scam, resulting in a rather disappointing movie.

A film that should never have been made. Don't be fooled. Because a film has a difficult subject matter does not immediately make the film important or even worthy of watching. The film says nothing new about the difficult subject matter. Worse, it uses the subject as an excuse. It does not show the pain involved to aid the audience's understanding (no one would need any help to understand the victims are in extreme pain in this situation); instead, it portrays the acts in order to exploit the body of the young actress playing the part. This is not only a movie about exploitation, it is exploitation itself, and a of very disgusting variety. The only trick here is how director Roth tries to hide it.

A family that has problems interacting--yeesh, this has been done over and over and over again. Any episode of the TV show Roseanne, for example. And why has it been done over and over again? It is not as compelling or important a problem as child poverty, the war on drugs, the decline of democracy, the war in Iraq, etc., etc. It is a topic for people who cannot see beyond their own front yard. So, we have a dull, overused topic to start Junebug. How do they make it something special? By making the movie so slow you wonder if the speed on your DVD is set right? No, that doesn't help. By having a sad and shocking event take place? No, that has the cheap ring of the emotional string pulling that happens weekly on ER. The result: this movie is far from special. It is solidly mundane.