A triptych of short films set on and immediately after 9/11, "A Broken Sole" is based on a stage production by its screenwriter and co-producer, Susan Charlotte. One hopes the material played on stage, because it dies on screen.
The film's director, Antony Marsellis, attempts visual lyricism with jump-cut montages and shots of twinned objects meant to evoke You Know What. But "A Broken Sole" consists mainly of boringly staged tableaux of self-involved yuppies and sentimentalized white working-class ethnics struggling to connect.
On 9/11 an opera-loving cobbler (Danny Aiello) recalls a painful World War II experience while fixing the broken sole (cough, cough) of a shoe belonging to a Columbia film professor (Judith Light) who witnessed that morning's catastrophe. In October 2001 a cranky, love-scarred real estate broker (Laila Robins) takes a cab ride with an eccentric, nosy driver (Bob Dishy) who weirdly over-enunciates while discussing his wife's diabetes and explaining why he declined his passenger's offer of fudge. In December 2001 an actress (Margaret Colin) and a philosophical dyslexic (John Shea) come to terms with their one-night stand while pondering picnic baskets, foreign films and palindromes.
Throughout, 9/11 doesn't so much loom over the proceedings as pop up now and again, to lend gravitas to characters and situations that wouldn't otherwise hold your attention.
The film's director, Antony Marsellis, attempts visual lyricism with jump-cut montages and shots of twinned objects meant to evoke You Know What. But "A Broken Sole" consists mainly of boringly staged tableaux of self-involved yuppies and sentimentalized white working-class ethnics struggling to connect.
On 9/11 an opera-loving cobbler (Danny Aiello) recalls a painful World War II experience while fixing the broken sole (cough, cough) of a shoe belonging to a Columbia film professor (Judith Light) who witnessed that morning's catastrophe. In October 2001 a cranky, love-scarred real estate broker (Laila Robins) takes a cab ride with an eccentric, nosy driver (Bob Dishy) who weirdly over-enunciates while discussing his wife's diabetes and explaining why he declined his passenger's offer of fudge. In December 2001 an actress (Margaret Colin) and a philosophical dyslexic (John Shea) come to terms with their one-night stand while pondering picnic baskets, foreign films and palindromes.
Throughout, 9/11 doesn't so much loom over the proceedings as pop up now and again, to lend gravitas to characters and situations that wouldn't otherwise hold your attention.