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Apartment Troubles (2014)
Women can be slackers too
Most people have heard of "willing suspension of disbelief". To the viewer it is a very important part of the movie-going process because you have to be predisposed towards wanting to see a movie or you wouldn't watch it.
This movie's description sounded mildly interesting but when I watched it I found it hard to suspend disbelief, mainly due to a weak plot full of unanswered questions.
"Apartment Troubles" stuck me as a glorified student film, which is not inherently a bad thing. This film was written and directed by the two lead actresses and overall they did a creditable job on the film.
However, the weaknesses in the plot are enough to tell you that the two are definitely not experienced screenwriters.
I was able to follow most of the thin plot of this deliberately paced movie but I still have some questions I wish Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler could answer for me since the film itself didn't.
The two actresses did a decent job of acting but due to the script the exact nature of their characters' relationship was unclear. I guess they might be lovers whose relationship is ending but I was never really sure.
The IMDb description calls them "codependent roommates", if they are indeed lovers then their banter is very passive-aggressive because theirs is apparently a one-sided love, one that Nicole cannot return to Olivia.
It is hard to get a handle on Olivia, in most films as a brunette she would be the sober one of the pair, but in this case she is portrayed as barely functioning at times. She is supposed to be less stable than Nicole but then at times she acts more sane than Nicole.
Olivia's cat turns up dead, but the movie glosses over the exact cause of Seagull's death (played by Bobafett, great name for a cat). Gold paint around Seagull's neck makes us think that Nicole killed Seagull but that part is also fuzzy.
Blonde Nicole is model pretty and is supposed to be a starving artist but all I saw was a spoiled rich girl slacker in a trashy apartment. To me she came across as cold and unfeeling so it was hard for me to empathize with her "Apartment Troubles".
Nicole's family is freezing her out but again it is unclear why. Could it be that is she is always asking for money? Or because of her ambiguous, almost lesbian relationship with Olivia?
So the pair can't pay rent on their illegal sublet in New York (which contrary to the other poster you CAN get evicted for) but then Nicole has access to a private jet to fly the pair to California?
Uh, OK. You may want to pause for a bong hit to suspend disbelief again.
Then they visit Nicole's rich Aunt Kimberley, who also happens to co-host a hit TV show, and badda bing, badda boom! they are allowed to perform in front of a national TV audience. Their big break, huh?
OK now is a good time to pause and take another bong hit. Trust me on that.
But no, Nicole makes Olivia perform a piece that would be insulting to performance art if you called it performance art. Wouldn't it be better to just tell Olivia it's over instead of embarrassing her on national TV? If they are actually lovers that is?
This scene could have been played for big laughs (a gong like the Gong Show would have awesome) but instead they played it straight so it makes Nicole come across as a little bit of sadist for putting poor Olivia through all that.
Especially after she killed Olivia's cat. If she did kill poor Seagull that is. Don't blame the bong hits, that one is squarely on the sketchy script.
I am not sure how the film is supposed to be funny, to me it was just pathetically sad with only a chuckle or two thrown in every now and then.
The film is mainly about the two lead characters and the other characters (including some relatively famous actors) are cardboard cutouts of people only there for the two leads to exchange dialogue with.
In my opinion the film really needed a little more clarity on Olivia's and Nicole's relationship, if indeed they were lovers on the outs they could have mined that vein for some drama as well as some comedy.
If the writers had a gotten a writer with some experience in comedy to rewrite the final draft then it could have been an above-average movie with some laughs, maybe even a modest commercial success at the box office.
In summary this movie had a lot of potential that never got realized because it is pretty hard to write a script and then also act in and direct the film too.
The good news is that both Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler show a lot of promise so we should be hearing from them in the future.
I am pretty easy going when it comes to rating movies, it has to be really bad to rate poorly with me.
I'm looking at you remake of Total Recall, had I not seen the original I would have never figured out what the hell was happening!
Ladies will like this film more plus they will also like the fact that it was created by two talented young women. So two glasses of wine and no bong hits = 6.
Guys, if your significant other makes you watch this film it is not a total waste of time. Half a six-pack and two bong hits = 4.
So the average of the two is 5, mainly because there are a lot worse films out there than "Apartment Troubles"!