Monday Review: First and Last Viewing Types

There are certain films that aren't really suitable, in one form or another, for more than one screening. Obviously the reasons for this are endless... you have movies like The Sixth Sense... which, after you realize Bruce Willis' character is dead, too, what's the point? So much of the movie leaned on the fact that you weren't sure what the deal was with this weird guy and his sad wife. Or there are some "B movies" like most chic flicks that were entertaining enough that one night you were really bored but end up not being worth your time ever again.

Well, after a fast-paced, eventful weekend, I decided to find a recent film to end the day. I ended up with a movie called The Last Word, starring Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), and Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice).

The story's about a writer who writes suicide letters for clients intending to end their lives. This writer, Evan, meets a girl at one of the funerals of his clients who pursues him aggressively. Just as she's starting to seem crazier than the suicide ghostwriter, he falls for her and they start a relationship. This naturally brings about some roadblocks as they get to know one another. He ends up having to cover his reasons for being at his girlfriend's brother's funeral and thus his profession. Eventually, the girl notices he's covering up something when he turns her down for lunch two days in a row. She sees him at his normal meeting place for clients having lunch with a woman. She assumes he's cheating, so in a fury she returns to his apartment to get her things and angrily goes through his filing cabinet. She discovers her brother's file and when the writer arrives after his lunch, the late brother's file is strewn all over his desk. It all ends with the girl breaking up with him, he moves away, and he and one of the clients he rescues from a jump starts a business video-taping people throwing things that piss them off over a cliff.

Yeah.

I think the filmmakers where depending on the absurdity and Wes Bentley's cool weirdness to carry the film. Had the ending been a little more interesting, it might have worked. I'm not going to say that there weren't some well-written moments of dark humor... particularly in the beginning. However, the seriousness of the topic and the end of the writer's love relationship over-shadow the gallows humor.

(from theenvelope.latimes.com)

Winona Ryder's character is both painfully normal and a little psycho. After seeing some stranger at her brother's funeral, she walks up to him, introduces herself, looks up his home number to call him, and asks him to go out to pie, a club, and lunch. Then she drops her top out on boating deck and the affair begins. All the while, he doesn't give her much to work with... he speaks very little, seems socially inept at making conversation, and lies about what he does for a living. It just doesn't add up to something terribly believable. You could stretch and think that the girl is acting out a little in response to her brother's death, but, that's a bit more work than an audience should have to do to enjoy a movie.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the film was Ray Romano. He plays the part of one of the Evan's suicidal clients who is dark and blunt. I'm not a Romano fan, but he pulls off depressed and sick very well. He likes to find Mom's with babies facing backward so he can make faces at them to scare them and make them cry. He works as a composer for elevator music who puts the idea in Evan's head to start a business with a cliff and charging people to heave their fax machines, computers, and other infuriating appliances to a noisy and explosive end. There's very little say other than that... and that's the best part of the movie.

The writer, Evan, has a few interesting quirks whose ends are never tied up. He doesn't own a car or a cell phone. He takes the bus and has an old corded phone. He doesn't even get an answering machine until after he begins his love affair with Charlotte (Winona Ryder). It's never really explained why... one could deduce that there can't be but so much money in the suicide letter industry, but again, I think that's too much to expect out of an audience.

(from windriderforum.org)

So, the movie ends with Charlotte forgiving Evan but declaring she'd never want to see him again and then with Evan and Abel (Romano) taping a guy throwing his fax machine off a cliff.

My last word on this movie is, "Okay............................................"