This film reminded me how different our current culture is to the one in which this film was made in 1996. Today we have shows like the Man Show and movies like Fight Club and talk show hosts like Tom Leykis to cheer on the 'male backlash' community. Back when this film was released, there was none of that, so this film must have felt extremely fresh and new -- hence it received extreme praise from all around.
I first saw this film today, though, January 19, 2004, and both me and my girlfriend found it hopelessly dated. Dialog that wanted so much to sound shocking and new, sounded clicheed and stilted.
Basically, what this movie was trying to do has now been done so much better by other people that this film just seems lame.
What really stands out now is how poorly written the dialog is. The writer has no ear for the conversation, so we are instead forced to watch two characters deliver long monologues to each other. This gets very tiresome after a point. It actually felt more like a two man play than a movie. Something of a Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern for the modern white collar worker. Throw in bad lighting and a hopelessly contrived plot and you have a film that I found extremely hard to watch or care about. 3/10
I first saw this film today, though, January 19, 2004, and both me and my girlfriend found it hopelessly dated. Dialog that wanted so much to sound shocking and new, sounded clicheed and stilted.
Basically, what this movie was trying to do has now been done so much better by other people that this film just seems lame.
What really stands out now is how poorly written the dialog is. The writer has no ear for the conversation, so we are instead forced to watch two characters deliver long monologues to each other. This gets very tiresome after a point. It actually felt more like a two man play than a movie. Something of a Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern for the modern white collar worker. Throw in bad lighting and a hopelessly contrived plot and you have a film that I found extremely hard to watch or care about. 3/10