Review of Duane Hopwood (2005) by Hannah M — 19 Jan 2009

This has to be one of the most depressing little movies I've ever seen. And yet nothing seemed to come of it. The first half is a nice portrayal of this guy's "loser" life, but then it just stops and meanders for another fifty minutes. It appeared to try to be manufacturing some sort of "happy ending" at the conclusion of the film, but this happy ending was all a lie because in reality, nothing had been solved and only one thing had even been in the slightest resolved. The subject of Duane's drinking habit is tossed to the side an hour into the movie, although that first hour kept promising us this was a major issue. Apparently not THAT major.

I will say, however, that David Schwimmer was remarkably good in this. I haven't seen him in much else apart from Friends, where he played Ross, a character who was forced to be constantly depressed because the writers kept toying with and then destroying his love life for ten seasons. But while his suffering there was comic, Schwimmer makes an elegant transition here to portraying real suffering, real denial, real pain, without the audience being able to laugh at him. Kudos to him. I was going to give this movie just 2.5 stars, but his unexpectedly great performance earns another half a star.