Love And Other Disasters
March 31st 2008 10:48
Is Love And Other Disasters a Quirky Brit rom-com or postmodern parody?
Alek Keshishian’s film can’t quite make up its mind and ends up as an unoriginal and self-conscious little venture which had me reaching for the fast-forward button.
This blog’s purpose is to document the preponderance of writers in writing (and film) and I barely had this little number out of the case before I was on writer alert!
The opening frames of LAOD have that typewriter-ish illusion – you know the thing – words appear on the screen one letter at a time in an old-fashioned typing font, making the viewer feel as if they are watching a writer at work. I don’t know exactly what was written on the screen but it was obvious that said typist was writing a screenplay.
FADE IN:
INT: The quaint British flat of an American girl (JACKS) with a pseudo-British accent. Her tousled hair covers the pillow while Audrey Hepburn smiles down at her from the many posters lining her walls. Her gay best friend (PETER) saunters in, obviously comfortable while naked in front of JACKS…
That wasn’t it, but it was almost as bad.
The basic storyline is thus: Jacks (Brittany Murphy with the obligatory quirky nickname) works for London Vogue but grew up in America – conveniently explaining away any lapses in her accent.
Her gay best friend,Peter, is a screenwriter writing a film with the title, Love And Other Disasters. Peter is played by Matthew Rhys who is the dry-witted Kevin in TV’s Brothers and Sisters He does a pretty decent job here although I hate nearly every line that comes out of his mouth – but that’s not his fault.
So there’s our writer alert straight up.
Now I can appreciate a bit of self-reflexiveness as much as the next po-mo gal but please! This film lurches from one Brit film cliché to another without stopping to have a proper laugh at itself. The locations are suitably quaint – either sweet London streets and olde terrace flats to ultra modern, cavernous spaces – de rigeur in the London art scene.
The twee soundtrack further signposts the film’s ‘quirkiness’ and begs us to laugh at the litany of ‘cute’ English stereotypes – and not in an ironic way.
If you’ve seen Robert Altman’s The Player then you understand the concept of The Pitch.
This is how I reckon Keshishian pitched Love And Other Disasters:
“It’s Sex and The City meets The Devil Wears Prada, meets Notting Hill meets Love, Actually. And the characters say “Fuck” a bit so it’s sort of like Four Weddings And A Funeral”
Now there’s homage, and then there’s just plain old copy-catting. And pastiche is fine but perhaps with a more subtle touch.
Characters and plotlines are so cliché I got a sort of filmic whiplash trying to keep up. Just as I looked at Brittany Murphy and thought, “She’s got a bit of an Audrey Hepburn thing going on” her character pops in a copy of Breakfast At Tiffany’s and we get a long, lingering clip from the film as Peter says, “You love this film, don’t you Jacks?” to which she replies while indicating her Audrey appearance, “Just look at me Peter.”
OK, we get it. But can someone please tell the director the writer’s rule of ‘show, don’t tell’?
Then there’s the plotline of mistaken identities with our two protagonists almost missing out on their true loves who have been under their noses the whole time. Peter even does the run through the London Underground for the man he nearly lost.
For Jacks it’s the Argentinian fashion photographer’s assistant whose real dream is photo reportage and who is in love with Jacks unbeknownst to her as she thinks he’s gay because he’s good looking and works in fashion. When he is threatened with deportation she says she’ll marry him (there’s the Wedding part). There’s even a fully choreographed Tango dancing scene.
See, whiplash!
By the film’s end Peter manages to get his screenplay made into a film (with Gwyneth Paltrow and Orlando Bloom in cameos) And in the final scene Jacks is pregnant to Paulo and as the ensemble cast leaves a screening of Peter’s film Jacks’ waters break and they all fall around in cheery hilarity as the trusty typewriter tells us that the film is going to:
FADE OUT
I spent the duration of this film waiting for a punchline – surely this isn’t for real?
At one point Peter says, “What if I’ve written the worst script ever?” to which I almost did a little postmodern ‘borrowing’ myself and said “Ya think??!!” I was waiting for the camera to pull back revealing a director saying “This is shite”, but alas, it didn’t happen.
Even the title disappointed me, calling to mind Emma-Kate Croghan’s fabulous Aussie film of 1996, Love And Other Catastrophes. It feels as if this film – starring Frances O’Connor and Radha Mitchell in very early roles as well as the divine Alice Garner (daughter of the wondrous Helen)- is tainted by having a title so similar to Kesheshian's crap.
Now Alek Keshishian made the fab doco, Truth Or Dare (known in Australia as In Bed With Madonna) and I was quite fond of that film but its strength may have been the intriguing nature of the Madonna juggernaut at the end of the twentieth centeury. His Madonna association might explain why Gwyneth took a cameo in LAOD – what with being Mads’ bestie and all.
But does it explain why the director gets a Scorcese credit on the cover – An Alek Keshishian Film? Like it matters.
All I can say is, thank someone that I had a Video Ezy voucher and got this DVD for free! Please let me know if you think I have missed the point of Love And Other Disasters.
Now, Woody Allen’s Scoop was a better type of Brit film, although Allen’s stuttering, fish-out-of-water character is usually fun to watch. And if the title didn’t give it away, this film also qualifies for The List. Scarlett Johansen is a journalism student who is contacted fromn the Afterlife by a British journo. One of the early scenes is of the journo’s funeral and the Fleet Street-esque gathering simply bristles with writers.
Are writer's over-represented in writing? Well this weekend I couldn't escape them!
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Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Daily Inspirations
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
You made me remember American Splendour, where Paul Giamatti plays a cartoonist (which incorporates writing, but then it's autobiographical). At certain points in the film we zoom out to reveal the director and crew, and the director has a chat to the actor about his work. Very po-mo!
I just remembered another book you might like to have a look at: 'Atonement' by Ian McEwan. It was recently adapted for the screen and the movie won a bunch of awards, and garnered Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. It has a postmodern ending which calls most of the events of the book into question, and is quite interesting. I'm actually about a third of way through it right now.
Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
I feel like a modern Alice in Through The Looking Glass and I'm chasing you all over Blogland!
I love postmodern techniques but this movie shitted me senseless. I hated it so much that this review didn't even come out half as vitriol-laced as I hoped.
I have seen American Splendour and you are spot on there - that's real self-reflexiveness for you.
Don't get me started on Ian McEwan. He's the subject of a future blog.
How do you know the ending if you are only a third through it?? Are you also a postmodern reader who eschews a linear approach to reading? haha(there's a something in today's SMH which talks about the seven words most over-used by critics and eschew is one of them so I thought I'd use it here!)
Cheers,
Jayne
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Daily Inspirations
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
I think the best revenge is to maintain your equanimity whilst denouncing something, which I think you managed to do, for the most part!
Silly me, I forgot to mention that I had watched the movie first and that was what led me to turn to the book!
Lol, your use of eschew is very postmodern, in that case! Keep up the fabulous work, my dear ~