It took me fifteen minutes into watching 'Laps' before I decided that this movie would work better as a mini series instead of a nearly two hour long movie. When this thought first occurred to me it was before I had discovered that 'Laps' had actually been created as a web series.
The first fifteen minutes constituted the first season of the series and I felt some small sense of closure after it had passed. When I checked to see how much longer the movie was I was surprised; I still had an hour and a half to go. What else was this movie going to tell me?
The lead character, Nathan Lane, starts out as a slightly overweight Archie Bunker wannabe who is trying to get his life in order. At the track that he runs laps at he comes across Stephanie Gonzales, an attractive single mother.
Eventually Nathan loses the weight and garners a new outlook on life thanks in large part to his interactions and attraction to Stephanie. She begins to reciprocate his feelings.
Nathan is a divorced father. We learn that he had cheated on his ex wife and now he lives with regret for this.
At first I thought this was a story about redemption. He was going to meet Stephanie and learn to find happiness within himself again. I thought that Stephanie was going to be the woman that would make Nathan begin to walk the proverbial straight and narrow.
It turns out that I was wrong. After another hour of meandering through mundane plot points, bizarre and random slapstick humor, and the introduction of cliché characters who serve as merely filler for exposition, Nathan ends up cheating on Stephanie with his ex wife. He essentially learns nothing and doesn't grow. He even lies to Stephanie about the affair.
While I was happy to see that Stephanie ended up with a man of seeming decent rapport, I was disappointed that I even mildly invested in Nathan and her as a couple to begin with.
'500 Days of Summer' this is not. Nor should this film have tried to be.
Nathan's character had already been a cheater. Why did we, as the audience, need to witness him cheating on a woman again? It told us nothing new. The character was the same at the beginning as he was at the end, minus several pounds.
I imagine that the director would argue that this was all intentional to show how in real life things don't always work out. But when we invest time into movies we don't want to see things end on such a downer.
Even that far branching genre of mumblecore has the charm of resolution.
In Woody Allen's seminal film, 'Annie Hall' the lead character, Alvy, learns about love and relationships in spite of not ending up with Annie. In 'Laps' Nathan learns nothing. He's just a victim of his own bad decisions from beginning to end.
In '500 Days of Summer' the lead learns that he shouldn't have placed his own expectations for love on someone else. He learns something and therefore the audience learns something as well.
In 'Laps' the audience learns nothing. Except, maybe, to just not be Nathan.
Constructively, this narrative would have worked so much better as a web series. I can see the ups and downs working episode to episode and actually making sense. I can see how some episodes would have had a more comedic tone to them than others. I can also see a web series version giving more opportunity for the side characters to shine and perhaps iron out some of their clichés.
The crowning achievement of this film was Art Hall's performance. All would be lost if it weren't for his presence. It's really, actually good. There was never a point when I was watching that I didn't believe what Nathan's intention was in the scene. Whatever strange direction Hall was given in the comedic scenes, he pulled it off flawlessly. He worked with the material given him and gave a wonderful performance. Not to mention his amazing physical transformation in the film; perhaps the most interesting point.
All that to say, the story of Nathan and Stephanie can still be salvaged I feel. I am sure that a decent short film can be edited together with the footage available. Or, perhaps, even going back and creating a more fleshed out and quick paced second web series.
I would watch a second web series in a heart beat just to see Art Hall's performance and to see how the character of Nathan actually changes.
The first fifteen minutes constituted the first season of the series and I felt some small sense of closure after it had passed. When I checked to see how much longer the movie was I was surprised; I still had an hour and a half to go. What else was this movie going to tell me?
The lead character, Nathan Lane, starts out as a slightly overweight Archie Bunker wannabe who is trying to get his life in order. At the track that he runs laps at he comes across Stephanie Gonzales, an attractive single mother.
Eventually Nathan loses the weight and garners a new outlook on life thanks in large part to his interactions and attraction to Stephanie. She begins to reciprocate his feelings.
Nathan is a divorced father. We learn that he had cheated on his ex wife and now he lives with regret for this.
At first I thought this was a story about redemption. He was going to meet Stephanie and learn to find happiness within himself again. I thought that Stephanie was going to be the woman that would make Nathan begin to walk the proverbial straight and narrow.
It turns out that I was wrong. After another hour of meandering through mundane plot points, bizarre and random slapstick humor, and the introduction of cliché characters who serve as merely filler for exposition, Nathan ends up cheating on Stephanie with his ex wife. He essentially learns nothing and doesn't grow. He even lies to Stephanie about the affair.
While I was happy to see that Stephanie ended up with a man of seeming decent rapport, I was disappointed that I even mildly invested in Nathan and her as a couple to begin with.
'500 Days of Summer' this is not. Nor should this film have tried to be.
Nathan's character had already been a cheater. Why did we, as the audience, need to witness him cheating on a woman again? It told us nothing new. The character was the same at the beginning as he was at the end, minus several pounds.
I imagine that the director would argue that this was all intentional to show how in real life things don't always work out. But when we invest time into movies we don't want to see things end on such a downer.
Even that far branching genre of mumblecore has the charm of resolution.
In Woody Allen's seminal film, 'Annie Hall' the lead character, Alvy, learns about love and relationships in spite of not ending up with Annie. In 'Laps' Nathan learns nothing. He's just a victim of his own bad decisions from beginning to end.
In '500 Days of Summer' the lead learns that he shouldn't have placed his own expectations for love on someone else. He learns something and therefore the audience learns something as well.
In 'Laps' the audience learns nothing. Except, maybe, to just not be Nathan.
Constructively, this narrative would have worked so much better as a web series. I can see the ups and downs working episode to episode and actually making sense. I can see how some episodes would have had a more comedic tone to them than others. I can also see a web series version giving more opportunity for the side characters to shine and perhaps iron out some of their clichés.
The crowning achievement of this film was Art Hall's performance. All would be lost if it weren't for his presence. It's really, actually good. There was never a point when I was watching that I didn't believe what Nathan's intention was in the scene. Whatever strange direction Hall was given in the comedic scenes, he pulled it off flawlessly. He worked with the material given him and gave a wonderful performance. Not to mention his amazing physical transformation in the film; perhaps the most interesting point.
All that to say, the story of Nathan and Stephanie can still be salvaged I feel. I am sure that a decent short film can be edited together with the footage available. Or, perhaps, even going back and creating a more fleshed out and quick paced second web series.
I would watch a second web series in a heart beat just to see Art Hall's performance and to see how the character of Nathan actually changes.