Review of Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016) by Edeltraud — 22 May 2017

If you like boring movies, you'll love Norman. Norman is the most boring movie ever made. The Academy Awards should make a new category for Most Boring Movie just to recognize the mind-numbing tediousness of Norman.

A bunch of boring guys in suits blather and give each other long looks laden with meaning, punctuated by long segments of religious music and five minutes of putting herring on a Ritz cracker (it wasn't even herring in cream sauce!) Even the lesbian was boring, same sotto voce as the boring guys.

Sometimes they blather (yell) in Hebrew (or Yiddish?)and there are subtitles, yes, it's that ghastly. I checked my watch three times during the course of this film. When Scene 4 came on, I thought I'd die & almost left, but managed to persevere! It's as if Woody Allen found an old script under his bed and said, what the heck, might as well, I haven't got anything else going on.

It's as if a guy had an idea that seemed like a good idea on the subway ride home & somehow got it made into a full blown movie. I gave it one point because for a second or two there might have been some decent acting, but then it devolved into character tics, like Richard Gear eating candy deliberately and squinting.

There was an inordinate amount of squinting in this movie. There was not one whit of drama or thrill. Even Steve Buscemi couldn't infuse this ponderous script with any joy. To cap it all off, the director used cute split screen tricks to try and hold your interest and silly (again Woody Allen-esque) music in an attempt to breath some life into this dog.