Reviews

I must agree with reviewer Sitenoise in regard to the "music video" scene. It was clichéd and pointless. I think the writers wanted to show the female character's playful side and the only thing they could think of was to have her bop around the room to a pop song. If that's the tack to take, then a few seconds of her singing along in the bathroom mirror would have been enough. But instead the movie veered off into an MTV cutaway. Why? Everything was going so well up until that point. To me it took some time to recover from that, because it took me out of the film itself; I was no longer watching a movie about two people attracted to each other and who acted on that attraction, and who then found that there was an emotional chemistry going on underneath their physical attraction - instead, the viewer was treated to a music video. It interrupted the tone.

The movie does regain its moorings after the "music vid" moment, and I was once again captivated by it. Other writers are correct when they say that Daniela is the most compelling character; she has the greater mystery attached to her and I found myself wanting to know afterward what happened to her. At times the actress reminded me of the great Juliette Binoche, in her faraway glances that conveyed such ineffable loneliness and melancholy.

A useful comparison, if you've seen this or are going to: also watch "Room In Rome", which is the same basic story, except that the two lovers are both women.

If I were to boil this movie down into one sentence: lonely people trapped within jail cells they either create or accept. Character One: Simon, a severely socially-maladapted 20-year-old living in an apartment with his mentally ill mother who uses him for her emotional gratification. Character Two: Tommaso, an elderly mail clerk who has lived alone his whole life so as not to have to share his time or attention with others, and who learns at the outset that he's going blind. Character Three: Rose Phipps, a young professional who, when we see her, we sense a mute sadness. Character Four: Mark Phipps, her estranged husband, who has only two notes - anger and frustration. And Isabel, a family matriarch in Tommaso's office who lives vicariously through her grandchildren. With the exception of Rose, who is the emotional center of this movie, these really aren't people I'd want to spend much time with.

Rose, an optometrist, gives the diagnosis to Tommaso, and suggests that he tell his family and his friends of his condition so as to help his transition into long-term disability. She later becomes a de-facto therapist for him as he works through his denial and anger over the predicament, and later, as he tentatively pursues a romance with Isabel, in his office. Isabel, for her part, develops an attachment to him but it really seems unmotivated; there's no real chemistry between them and their interaction up until the time he asks her on a date is full of un-charming awkwardness. Nor does he doesn't do much to endear himself to her or her family as the romance, such as it is, progresses. He just seems like a grumpy old man who can only talk about himself. I could understand her motivation if it were mere sympathy, but the script wanted it to be more, and it just wasn't earned.

Simon works in a camera shop and as such has access to long-range lenses; since he doesn't have any social outlets, skills, or interests, he already lives rather voyeuristically, so walking around photographing strangers comes quite naturally to him. But he has a problem: he's attracted to pretty women. OK that might not be a problem in itself, but what he decides to do as a result seems questionable. He stalks them. He follows them to their residences. He sits in the dark across from their building and lurks, and shoots photos through open windows. He follows them when they go with their ex-spouses to public events and sits nearby watching them. These scenes are interspersed with scenes of his home life with his crackpot mother, in which there's an unhealthy lack of intimacy boundaries, and this is all meant to show him as pathetic and helpless, but I wasn't buying it. He seemed simply creepy. And that's what makes the next thing so implausible; when Rose catches him out, she doesn't have a restraining order put in place on him, which anyone in her position in real life would do. Instead, she eventually starts to encourage his behavior.

Rose is afflicted by grief, and I do have to say that Graham hits this note-perfect. She has the stricken aura that anyone who has lost someone near can identify. Her emotional world has been slammed sideways; only her work continues, which she continues, joylessly if competently. Of course, it's telegraphed from the first scenes what her affliction is, which makes the explication later more or less gratuitous. Her estranged husband attempts to maintain contact with her but he's oblivious to all but his own needs, and this makes him oafish and repellent.

Tommaso eventually treasures his isolation more than any intimacy Isabel hoped for and was willing to offer, and he asks her to meet him at the park and then stands her up. We saw this coming, didn't we? He watches from a distance in order to cradle his loneliness. Rose lures her stalker into her brownstone and seduces him. Within the confines of her story, this is believable - she wants to feel anything different that what she's been feeling for the last 8 months - but then, the movie itself takes you out of that believability by reminding us just what damaged goods Simon is, so that even while her motivations make sense, the scene is implausible. Not even the sight of Heather Graham's finely-shaped rear is enough to take this scene seriously. And then, with even greater implausibility, the movie wraps up these dangling threads with succinct neatness: Simon stands up to his abusive mother, leaves her to her own twisted devices, and suddenly walks with confidence, soon bumping into and befriending Tommaso, who's finally accepted the need of the help of others. Rose returns as a surprise to her estranged husband.

I guess the takeaway is: all a young guy needs is to get laid by an older woman. And all she needs to return to her husband is to get laid by someone who's violated her privacy. Eh, what? 4/10 only because the acting is mostly good, especially by Graham and Pena.

I agree with Hrunting that the idea floated in this movie - creating a business model where you're paid as a personal paparazzo could make for a interesting meditation on the need for attention, which could go either in a dramatic or satirical direction. However, this is not that movie. Instead, we have a soap opera with voyeurism and obsession as a plot device designed to drive the couple apart.

I think the actors do a great deal nonetheless with the material, and portray their characters convincingly. The breakup scene is excruciating, because all she's asking for is a reason to stay with him and he can't articulate one. I didn't like his character or his decisions, but that doesn't mean it's a bad movie or a bad performance; he was convincing enough in the role that he was believable.

My biggest problem with it is that the whole concept wasn't plausible. Does anyone really think that in the internet age, with exhibitionists of all kinds online at any moment of every day, that a guy in his 30s in NYC would seriously find the private life of "subgirl" so compelling? Compelling enough to abandon his fiancée at the hospital? And even if such a guy existed, is it plausible to think any woman would get into a relationship with someone so sexually immature and emotionally backward? Not to mention getting engaged to him.

I don't mind watching movies about dumb characters, but this movie treated me as if I was the dumb one.