Review of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009) by Scott S — 02 May 2010
I like Mr. Krasinski very much, he is an appealing guy who seems to have a very intellectual head on his shoulders. This film was made out of the love he had for David Foster Wallace's short story that he read in college.
This is an easy fascination to understand, I have been assigned many stories that I thought would make great films and so I applaud the director for being able to accomplish something I have such an affection for.
That said, the style of Krasinski's directing here is quite simple. I say that in hopes that he intended it to be that way. The camera is very static most of the time and only ever so often do we get a moving camera.
Most of the time it simply stys focused on the actor giving his highly intelligent and well though out monologue. There are some interesting points here and the concept is inspiring and gets credit for being different.
The parade of actors all seem to be doing their friend a favor with no one person getting too involved in the process. Even when Krasinski himself drops in to give his speech it is quite brief and then the film is over.
Some of the introspective interviews are more impressive than others, most notably, Frankie Faison's, but this kind of revolving door of stories never allows the audience to connect with one story or character.
This connection is supposed to be supplied by the lone female in the film, the one conducting these interviews, but she is never really developed as a character. She is only present to be the object that allows all these smart, funny and interesting things being said to somehow connect and form a story.
In the end, this ends up feeling more like an academic paper than a film. It gives us a main idea and plenty of examples to support the point its trying to make and while it is sometimes mildly entertaining, it never feels like we're watching this for the heck of watching a movie.
We're watching it to feel more intelligent and listen to intelligent folk spout their ideas of women and the world.
This review of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009) was written by Scott S on 02 May 2010.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men has generally received mixed reviews.
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