Friday, August 18, 2006

trust the man -DONT or wait for the video

I saw this in a free screening where i waited for over 2 hours to get in. It wasnt worth it but it was to save the 10.00. I would have paid and been disappointed to see it in the theater and pay for it.

it shows many scenes of NYC, many restaurants, many neighborhoods so if you are a NYPhile then you would love to spot all the spots in the city
its a great love story with the city
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What aspires to be a sophisticated, unconventional romantic comedy turns out to be a contrivance-filled pretender to other, better films of its genre.



SYNOPSIS

A smart, sophisticated comedy about the challenges of love and marriage among modern day New Yorkers, TRUST THE MAN features the romantic escapades of two couples: a successful actress (Julianne Moore) and her stay at home husband (David Duchovny); and her slacker younger brother (Billy Crudup) and his aspiring novelist girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The film follows these four on their pointed, often surprising and frequently hilarious search for love in the midst of careers, family, infidelity and the ever-daunting search for Manhattan street parking. -- © Fox Searchlight Pictures


First impressions count, even in film. That helps explain why an opening credit sequence that invokes Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” though without the shimmering imagery (or the eventual payoff of midcareer Allen) is a bad idea. It also explains why opening a film with a small child straining on a toilet and talking about poop isn’t just a bad idea; it’s an invitation to unfortunate metaphor.


Thus “Trust the Man” is a strained, flatulent relationship comedy about two couples, only one of which proves of interest to its writer and director, Bart Freundlich, perhaps because the woman in that couple is played by his own wife, Julianne Moore. She’s Rebecca, a film actress about to take the theatrical plunge at Lincoln Center. Rebecca is married to Tom (David Duchovny), who has ditched a lucrative advertising gig to trundle their little girl around town and flirt with a single mother lurking at his son’s school. Rebecca and Tom live in a West Village townhouse filled with light and tasteful appointments. Every so often they have sex; once a year they visit a therapist (Garry Shandling, having fun). They’re vaguely dissatisfied and crushingly dull.

Rebecca and Tom need our love to work as characters, but their kind of self-love leaves no room for outsiders. What it does leave room for are her brother, Tobey (Billy Crudup), and his girlfriend, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the couple’s unmarried best friends who are experiencing their own relationship pains partly because she seems to hear her biological clock ticking and partly because he’s a jerk. Elaine and Tobey are in meltdown because Mr. Freundlich subscribes to the theory that every Lucy-and-Ricky needs its Ethel-and-Fred, a cruder version of itself to mirror its ecstasies and agonies, no matter how banal. To that end, Elaine and Tobey ape their better-groomed pals while screeching and rattling the cage in which Mr. Freundlich has placed them. He also lights them badly.

Ms. Moore is nicely lighted, but she too is poorly served by Mr. Freundlich’s unfunny, unfocused screenplay, which basically stitches together a series of short scenes of four people whining in various combinations. Throughout the whining, Tom wears a small, amused smile that suggests he’s in on some cosmic joke, though it may just be that Mr. Duchovny knows that when you play what looks like the director’s surrogate you can’t help but come out ahead. Tom makes his wife weep, a little, and doesn’t share her limelight, but he turns out to be a great guy with hidden talents just waiting to be revealed. The final scene is meant to show those talents in full bloom, but everything that has come before suggests they died on the vine.

It makes you wonder why anyone bothered. Like a lot of American films made under the rubric of independence, “Trust the Man” lacks urgency and purpose; you never get a sense of why this story had to be made, much less shared. With its loud noises and costly effects, the typical Hollywood blockbuster at least tries to sell itself (and more films like it) to the audience.

“Trust the Man,” on the other hand, assumes that it has something the audience wants to buy. It’s an assumption that leaves a lot of talented actors hanging, the exception being James Le Gros, who makes a very funny, regrettably brief appearance as a would-be Lothario who turns a rueful caress of his mustache into an epic of smut.

“Trust the Man” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The film has some adult language and suggestive scenes.