Review of Lovely, Still (2009) by Kelly F — 11 Feb 2011

Now here's a film that defies any sort of story structure for its first hour. There's the protagonist Robert Malone (Martin Landau), and his love interest Mary (Ellen Burstyn) in a sudo Hallmark movie-of-the-week, except without the antagonist. For over an hour, their love blossoms without any real road bumps or squabbles. It's just a nice, light romance film about two elderly people that upholds it's very safe PG rating, with the exception of some seemingly odd-placed nightmarish moments.

I guess I should go back to see what I missed, or what clues I overlooked that would add up to the puzzle that is the twist ending. But I don't really care. I do consider myself the romantic type, and I do enjoy films with aging themes, but 'Lovely, Still' is much too superficial than it should be. Just because it has a twist ending that makes you question each moment doesn't make up for an artificial story. Movies are supposed to entertain, and as a viewer, I shouldn't have to wait until the ending of the movie to realize that the first hour was actually interesting. Being a slow movie isn't necessarily bad, but an immature movie is.

Writer/director Nicholas Fackler wrote this when he was 17 and directed it when he was 24. Being a young, aspiring filmmaker myself, I can recognize and appreciate young talent. Fackler has a pretty good idea of what he's doing behind the camera, but his writing is dragging him down. Without knowing his age, I could tell that the film was written by someone who had no idea what being a senior was like, and I was right. Not only does he lack the understanding of his subject manner, but he also abuses every visual cliche, every banal line of dialogue, and every sappy, nonexistent emotion that you would find in a romance movie.

While 'Lovely Still' benefits from its two veteren leads, it ultimately fails due to poor story structure and an overall blindness to its promising premise.