Liebe to go - Die längste Woche meines Lebens

I adore Jason Bateman and when I see he's in something, I watch him. I just love his no-nonsense delivery. He never tries to be funny; he reacts to the situation at hand.

He stars in "The Longest Week" from 2014, and like another reviewer here, I'm wondering why Jenny Slate is top-billed. I didn't know who she was until I looked it up.

Bateman plays 40-year-old Conrad Valmont who lives, as he has always lived, in the Valmont Hotel, owned by his parents. One morning the phone wakes him up, informing him that security will be up shortly to escort him and his dog Napoleon out of the hotel. The reason: his parents are divorcing and aren't paying any of his bills any longer.

He is able to get his chauffeur (Barry Primus) to care for Napoleon, but as far as caring for him, he really doesn't know where to go. He does something he never does - takes the subway. On the train he makes eye contact with a beautiful young woman (Olivia Wilde), who gives him her number. Dylan moves in on his friend and rival, a successful artist, Dylan Tate.

Dylan has recently dropped his girlfriend Jocelyn and has met a fabulous woman he thinks that he's in love with. When he attends Dylan's art show, the subway woman is there, and she's the same woman with whom Dylan is in love. He promises Dylan that he will not make a play for her, but he does, and they fall in love.

Beautifully photographed, this is a pleasant film, somewhat humorous, until it nears the end. I don't now if the filmmaker ran out of money, script, or what, but the film has a constant narration for a good ten minutes as scenes are being shown with no dialogue.

Kind of left me flat, despite all of the good acting.

Tony Roberts plays Conrad's therapist, who gives him a low-cost loan. As his chauffeur, Primus plays a man who knows Conrad better than anyone and has real affection for him.

Billy Crudup, whom I saw on stage in Arcadia and who was so marvelous in Stage Beauty, is wonderful, as a friend resigned to the fact that Conrad is a woman-stealing jerk who has been in the research phase of his great novel for years. House's Olivia Wilde (that's how I know her) looks fantastic and is believable as the object of both Conrad's and Dylan's affections.

This should have been better.

This isn't such a bad movie as it is a slow movie. Outside of that it's perfectly watchable. At movies finish my first thought was 'this is a flick for the one percent'.

This story centers around a 40 year rich playboy who finds himself essentially broke for one week. Does he suffer? No! Does he learn anything about everyday life? No! Bateman as Conrad Valmont just escapes to his well off friends and successfully hides his new status as 'broke' at least for awhile. In the mean time he still lives the privileged life because he has a name associated with wealth and others just cater to him. Plus he is constantly looking inward. In the end nothing really changed him. His only act of altruism is giving a street person a box of cigarettes and replacing cash he stole from a friend. Oh and around all this is a love story!

The photography is lush, dialog is wonderful, the acting is fine. But the plot gets very slow about 40 minutes into the movie and you'll wonder where this is going. It goes no where because the one percent are so insulated from the outside world any change in their lifestyle is a brief inconvenience. He ends up right back where he started with a book he wrote that nobody cared for.

The Longest Week (2014)

What a strangely almost good movie. It has lots of compelling elements, including Jason Bateman as the nice guy leading man (though here he plays a spoiled rich boy). It's a complex enough story, and a love story, and it's set in lovely Brooklyn (an almost Manhattan). It should work. And second leading man Billy Crudup is terrific—better than Bateman.

So enjoy it for what it is? Sure. But it will kludge along at times, and will get a bit obvious at other times. The women (girlfriends, mainly) are weakly cast (or weakly directed), which doesn't help. But mostly it's a matter of originality—which is missing.

In fact, the whole thing is alike a Woody Allen mashup wannabe. The voice-over will make you think too much of "Vicky Christina Barcelona" and some of the photography of "Manhattan" but in color. (They even cast Allen regular Tony Roberts in a role as, yes, a shrink.) But mostly it's "Annie Hall" redux. In fact, it's almost a remake—girl meets unlikely boy, they have a romance, it goes south, and then boy re-evaluates (with direct stealing of ideas like having the plot reappear as a play, or in this case as a novel). And even if you don't like "Annie Hall" (which I do), you have to admit it came first, and is wonderfully original.

To add insult to injury, the whole set design and shooting style is straight out of Wed Anderson, though toned down to the point of being dull. (Anderson is never dull, at least visually.)

So what is left? Lots of little moments—quaint remarks (skipping over the brazenly sexist stuff that is meant to be funny and is mostly embarrassing, like the soccer practice) and a generally nice flow of events. It's easy to watch even if you aren't enthralled.

Director and writer Peter Glanz is fairly new to the scene, and this movie is a seven day expansion of an earlier indie success, "A Relationship in Four Days." No wonder this one feels about three days too long. See it? Maybe, if you already know you like the cast or the genre. Or maybe just give the Allen films a second try. Worlds apart.

This film tells the story of a man with ultra rich parents, who is suddenly broke after his parents cut off his allowance. He puts on a cover up and wins a woman's heart, yet he discovers there is something more to life.

The interaction between Conrad and Dylan is realistic, thigh they both live in a world beyond most people's reach. Their intense competition between each other and yet almost accomplishing nothing is ironic, but I like the joke about the Volvo going back and forth. The romance subplot is very sweet and convincing, I enjoyed watching it.

This is a romantic comedy with a journey of self discovery. It's a pity that the main characters Conrad and Dylan are portrayed to be rather unlikable and arrogant characters who have no clue about the real world. That's because the film is actually enjoyable and rather warm, and if the characters are a bit more likable, people would probably like it more.

Without Olivia Wilde, this would be absolutely unwatchable. It wants to be Goddardian and early Woody Allenesk, but it's lack of character development and its weak dialogue not to mention it being devoid of any philosophical or social commentary take it nowhere. Perhaps if Crudup had had the lead and Batemen wasn't cast at all, the acting would have made it more compelling?