10 Items or Less

I'm a big fan of Morgan Freeman. 'The Shawshank Redemption' ranks at the top of my all-time favorite movies. But I have to admit that I have often wondered about his choice of roles. So many of his titles were big budget clichés with no heart. '10 Items Or Less' for me marks the return of Freeman to a role that truly showcases his considerable acting talents.

Freeman plays an unnamed, formerly big time Hollywood actor who hasn't worked in several years. He has been offered a part in an unspecified indi picture for which he is doing some research at a grocery store in a poor neighborhood in LA. After being stranded there by his flaky driver, Freeman is offered a ride home by checkout girl Scarlet (Paz Vega), whom he has semi-befriended. Before she can take him home, however, Scarlet has a big job interview she needs to get to, and Freeman agrees to tag along in exchange for the ride.

The movie follows Scarlet and Freeman to several locations, but the movie is really just a character piece about the interactions between the two. Freeman is the quintessential disconnected Hollywood type who hasn't heard of Target, and doesn't know his own telephone number or even what day of the week it is. He spouts wisdom from the Dalai Lama filtered thru his 'the whole world is but a stage' mentality, and repeatedly calls Scarlet's job interview an 'audition'. And yet he has a way with people, a way of affecting them that extends beyond his fame. He is a fan of humanity. He studies them, asks incessant questions about them, and delights in their quirks where others would simply be annoyed. In Scarlet, he sees the stubborn, proud loner that he was; he sees the man he used to be.

Scarlet, for her part, displays a fierce pride and sharp tongue that serve to hide her own insecurities about herself. Vega plays the role with a connection to Freeman that skates the line between an almost daughterly love and physical attraction, although she plays it beautifully and it's not at all as creepy as it sounds. But even as she feels her connection to Freeman grow, Scarlet has a keen eye for the reality of their different worlds and cuts thru Freeman's Hollywood bull*hit with a sharp pragmatism that refuses to accept anything but the truth.

The movie is smart, funny, and well written, with dialogue that is simple but effective. I read one IMDb review that said the lines were 'stilted', which I think is a misinterpretation of realistic human speech. There are no big soliloquies here, no deep soul searching moments. And so the trick is, I think, to show how people in ordinary, everyday life can forge connections with one another. And I think Freeman and Vega pull it off beautifully, painting a picture of a bond between two people that glitters like sun on the ocean, ethereal and elusive. Long after it's gone it lives on in your memories, tantalizing you with what might have been. OK, that was a bit flowery, but I really did like the performances and the movie. I would definitely recommend it.

I don't know why people always want deeper meaning in movies or else consider them worthless.

What about just being entertained? Something at which Morgan Freeman excels. He gets a chance to show off a bit. Paz Vega, his co-star, gets a career boost and Brad Silberling gets a name to draw people into watching his movie.

I thought it was a good movie. Some humor, some pathos, some bittersweetness but nothing over the top. I got an especial kick out of Jim Parsons as the receptionist at a construction company. When he looks at Freeman adoringly and says, "You make me want to be a woman." He's just hilarious. The fight scene between Ms. Vega her ex-husband and his girlfriend is wonderful too.

In short, it's a cute, charming film that will make you smile. You could do much, much worse.

Running only seventy-two minutes, this small, overlooked 2006 dramedy is really just a two-character sketch piece but one that works very well within its limitations. Taking place almost entirely in various, non-descript spots in southern Los Angeles, the story itself is inconsequential, but like Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation", the film is far more about two strangers who meet unexpectedly, find a common bond and go back to their lives enlightened for the momentous encounter. It also helps considerably that Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega are playing the characters. Finally freed of the wise sages and authority figures beyond reproach that have become his big-screen specialty, Freeman seems comparatively liberated as a somewhat self-indulgent movie star. His character is driven to a low-rent grocery store in Carson, where he will be able to research a role he is considering in an indie film.

Out of work for a few years, he is embarrassed when he sees DVDs of his films in the bargain bin, but his ego is such that he does not lack the temerity to watch and even mimic the enervated store staff. Of particular fascination to him is Scarlet, an embittered worker from Spain and relegated to the express line where she is the unsung model of efficiency. She has an interview for a secretarial job at a construction company, but her deep-seeded insecurity seems to defeat her chances already. Still looking like Penelope Cruz's Amazonian sister, the beautiful Vega (one of the few redeemable aspects of James L. Brooks' execrable "Spanglish") brings a stinging edge and realistic vulnerability to Scarlet. She and Freeman interplay very well throughout the story, which includes stops not only at the grocery store but also at Target, Arby's and a full-service carwash. Nothing earth-shattering happens except to show how two people realize the resonating transience of chance encounters.

Silberling keeps the proceedings simple, but the production also reflects expert craftsmanship in Phedon Papamichael's vibrant cinematography (he lensed Alexander Payne's "Sideways") and the infectious score by Brazilian composer Antonio Pinto ("City of God"). There are fast cameos by Bobby Cannavale (as Scarlet's soon-to-be-ex-husband) and as themselves, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, as well as a funny bits with Jonah Hill ("Knocked Up") as the clueless driver and Jim Parsons (the "knight" in "Garden State") as a worshipful receptionist. The 2007 DVD is overstuffed with extras, including a making-of documentary, "15 Days or Less", aimed at film students and running a marathon 103 minutes; six extended scenes; a light-hearted but insightful three-way conversation between Silberling, Freeman and Vega in the middle of Target; and a couple of snippets that specifically advertise the DVD.

It's a difficult movie to classify "10 Items or Less". Generally, I don't care about defining genres, but there's something about this movie that makes you want to put it in a specific category, in order to transmit, even with only one word, your feelings about it. I completely recommend this film to anyone and, if you truly enjoy cinema and if you enjoy life, you'll want to do the same as soon as you've finished watching it.

I recommend this movie and call it beautiful and delightful admitting it's not perfect but it doesn't do anything wrong. I don't want to sound like I contradict myself, but I believe writer/director Brad Silberling knew exactly what he was getting into when he finished writing this inspiring script. I'm sure he wanted to achieve a product that had nothing to do with perfection: a product that would be as simple, appealing and uncompromising as its title. Well, he's done it.

Silberling, director of long, complex, dramatic movies like "City of Angels" and "Moonlight Mile", proves with "10 Items or Less", which closes in at just 70 minutes, the passion he has for his work and also the faith he has in it. To put an actor (Morgan Freeman) in front of a woman (Paz Vega) in a grocery store and take them exactly to the places ordinary life would take them is what Silberling proposes here.

I can't tell you no more because within the apparent simplicity lies a thought provoking background that shouldn't be underestimated. Because here everyone's exposed: the camera focuses directly on the two main characters, who share endless conversation in a car ride with stops that's not endless only because life is life. And let me express how praise how well Silberling handles the situation by saying that he reaches, in less time (not only in movie duration time, but in the single day that the movie develops its events) and in a smaller place, the kind of connection between two characters that Sofia Coppola generated in "Lost In Translation".

That movie, set in Tokyo, also encountered an actor and a woman, and they also had conversations about the moments they were living in their lives. It's in the conversations where we sense the though provoking quality of "10 Items or Less" and, just as in Coppola's movie, the naturalness of every situation is never lost and the images with all music and no words don't seem forced or included in the picture to 'buy time'.

In this aspect, the collaboration of Silberling and his director of photography Phedon Papamichael. The man who shot the beautiful sceneries in "Sideways" and focused on every emotion in "Patch Adams", delights us here with visual passages of true natural beauty.

But the ultimate beauty of "10 Items or Less" can be found in its cast (by Avy Kaufman), in its two protagonists. They are the ones who transmit this feeling I mentioned at the beginning and I can't specify; we feel their connection and we can tell they're having fun and that they may even be improvising stuff. Academy Award Winner Morgan Freeman, also an executive producer of the film, simply stands there and confirms the status he has today in the movie industry, and one that's well deserved: a quiet man, filled with wisdom that can easily make you cry as he can make you laugh. And the beautiful Paz Vega (well, I said she was great in "Spanglish")…Here she proves she's the real deal, and Hollywood's not small for her.

10 ITEMS OR LESS was made in two weeks on a shoestring budget by writer/director Brad Silberling, just a little film shot in Carson, CA that feels like the entire story was improvised...in the best sense of the word. Silberling had the good fortune to pair veteran actor Morgan Freeman, in between his big projects, with Spanish actress Paz Vega, and the result is a dialogue between two people from different vantages who manage to enhance the life of the other.

Morgan Freeman plays himself - yet part of the comedy is that he is depicted as an actor who has been out of work for four years, scouting a location for a little 'filler film' to get back into the flow of things. His 'role' is to be that of a market manager and he is dropped off at seedy market in Carson where he encounters, among others, one Scarlet, the girl at the argumentative 10 Items or Less checkout line. Not only is Scarlet tired of her static job, she is also generally angry about her philandering husband (Bobby Cannavale), currently sleeping with Scarlet's lazy co-worker (Anne Dudek), and her lack of ability to get a decent job elsewhere. The two pair after a few shared problems and off they go on a 'road trip' that results in each of the characters growing from the presence and life story of the other.

It is a simple story, simply told, but because of the tender bonding between Freeman and Paz it works very well. This is one of those little films about human relationships where being vulnerable to change and exchange is the message. It is well worth viewing, and this is a DVD that has featurettes that are touching, informative, and comic - a pleasure to view. Grady Harp