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Suburban Girl (2007)

Friday, February 13, 2009

Suburban Girl. Feature film. (2007, 97 mins) IMDB

...Even though it stars Alec Baldwin, avoid this film--unless you want to learn from a bad film....

W

hen I watch a romantic comedy, I so much want to like it, often it's easy, even with flaws, but then there are clunkers and this is one of them.

First it's not a romantic comedy. There is romance, sort of, but not in the RomCom sense of true love and happily ever after. Further, the humour attempted in this movie is unoriginal and flat. Insulting even. That's not the phrase--it's cheap put-downs. Not even close to satire and there are few moments where there are attempts at humour.

The film is filled with clichés. There is no suspense, no interest. There simply isn't much to like about this film even if Baldwin is in it.

To the extent there is a narrative in this film, it's weak and we simply don't care about the characters.

As an example of a pathetic cliché: our hero works as an associate editor for a publisher. Late Friday as she discusses fabulous weekend plans, a get-away weekend, a higher-up plops a pile of manuscripts on her desk and says read them and write book reports by Monday. Yikes! That's how bad this film is.

The film tries to make the point that a fifty-year old man and a twenty-five year old woman should not reasonably expect to fall in love and have a happy ending. Well, no shit! We knew that the minute they met.

There is an attempt at setting up a love triangle, but her existing boyfriend at the start of the film is so lame as to be completely contemptible. So unbelievable and clichéd that she actually deserves to be with this beach bum. I suspect the filmmakers wanted to ridicule such types and in the process ruined any love triangle interest.

As for our hero, she is so superficial in her career and life and pursuits, we have no respect for her.

Here's another completely annoying habit common in the film. Since the setting is the publishing world in NYC, one person will quote Byron or Shakespeare and another will correct the person and say, no, it was Hitler who said that or wrote that. Such boorish behaviour is not a sign of intelligence and this film is filled with it. The film is filled with these: wink, wink, let me show you how superior and smart I am and meanwhile we're thinking, what a boob.

Even though the film stars Alec Baldwin and he gives a believable performance, the film is a dud. It is spent waste. There is absolutely nothing original or interesting or funny or romantic in it. I'd like to create the anti-version of this film so this film and its anti-film could collide in space and annihilate each other in an instantaneous flash--a flash I suspect would be far more fascinating than this film.

Posted 2009/02/13 at 15h43ET in Movie Commentary.

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