Review of Mr. Jealousy (1998) by Chance F — 14 Jan 2010

Got this in the mail today off eBay for ONE DOLLAR! What a feast. New York scenes, fine acting from friendly faces, and solid dramaturgy. For us at Cinema Bauer it was viewed after seeing Baumbach's first film twice (second time last night, to great accord), and in between a Rohmer moral tales fest.

How appropriate. Fact is Baumbach is much in the vein of Rohmer and the new wave, thoughtful plays about men and women, ups and downs, relationships. In this a comic and poignant look at love and friendship at the age of 30 instead of the 22-years-old average of the far more wistful Kicking And Screaming.

However in this case the inverse of the former, love is more complicated, relationships more extended than at the tenderer ages. Curious turn by genial Bogdanovich playing psychiatrist, reminding me of They All Laughed by Bogdanovic, another New York flick about love.

Both films stand side by side, move at a steady pace, offer incisive and literary glances at character and life, and have an unabashed sense of allowing human beings to appear imperfect and emotional on screen.

These films lack the expert targeting of Woody Allen, though they are conversation films set in New York, and they are sometimes warmer, not out to satirize or attack, so much as evoke and explore, both with an unabashed love of cinema.

Ultimately they belong on the shelf with Woody's films, but the angst isn't perhaps as dominant. It is important to have films like this in North America. They play around in genres without confining themselves to specifics, sometimes drawing things out a bit too long for a mainstream crowd wanting the familiar beats that reinforce familiar ideas about people and life, but offering a glimpse of how we really can sometimes be.

Imperfect, but true. Funny, lonely, loving, and alive.