Etienne!

The movie was delightfully playful and fun for all ages. Will inspire you to take a bike or road trip this summer with your favorite pet. Highly recommend.

An example that simple things can touch your emotions, and this film just do that. Its melancholic, its about sadness and our daily lifes. I dont think the main actor Richard was bad as other comment sugests. I think the idea of the movie was portray a ordinary guy, reserved and melancholic. Which he can do,and i think this is one of plus of this movie. The twists are fine and are not predictable and that does not has an happy ending which im appreciated for. Because those are what can touch your emotional being, and im happy for being touched during 1h30.the photography and how it was filmed was very very good. Thank you.

One of the more surprising highlights of the 2009 San Diego Asian Film Festival this year was Jeff Mizushima's Etienne! It stood out a lot on the film listing. For one thing, I did not know how it exactly related to the festival until I realized that the writer/director and many crew members of the production are Asian American.

It had been billed as a road trip movie about a man and his hamster – and that it was for kids. It sounded strange and a little funny, so I gave it a chance. And it is quite a strange movie but in all the right ways. It's fairly original, sweet and charming.

The movie follows Richard. He learns that his pet hamster, Etienne, is terminal with cancer. This propels them on a road trip (on a bicycle) where their paths intersect with a cornucopia of characters including: a pretty and solipsistic college girl, a scientist hitchhiker, a touring band, and an amateur photographer. It really is a road trip movie and there are a lot of great locations throughout Northern California depicted. In the end, I suppose the movie itself is very wrapped up in the idea of life, friendships, and happiness being very fragile and temporary and it was surprising that this was all addressed considering how light and absurd the opening scenes in San Francisco are (with a dull hotel job and a strange roommate being the focus of Richard's day-to-day). But none of it sounds pretentious because the characters are all so simple and genuine.

There are a lot of nice songs, it is almost wall-to-wall with music, but it's a good variety. The movie looks very retro and I think it has a lot to do with its 16mm film aesthetic (I think I recall hearing that it was shot on 16mm film; it definitely looks like it). And the acting is very amateurish but in a way that feels mostly authentic and appropriately awkward.

The director was in attendance along with his lead actor/friend, Richard Vallejos. It really seems to be a homegrown movie, as independent as an indie feature gets. I appreciated that the movie was short and succinct. I got a little disoriented at the halfway mark, when the narrative follows the Elodie character (solipsistic college girl), but that's kind of the point of the movie and it keeps things going. The heart of the movie is the subtle compassion that exists between Richard and Elodie when they finally meet and it works. I can think of no better way to describe it than the tagline on their poster and website: "A film about the little things in life."

This is one of the 4 movies I was able to catch at CineVegas this year. I feel that I need to digest the other 3 a little longer before I can write about them. Etienne, however, I could not get out of my head after seeing it--and not in a good way. I am ready to say this movie has a few bright spots but is mostly a waste of time.

I see on IMDb this movie is still considered in "post-production" (and the director prior to the film made some allusion to that as he apologized for the poor-quality transfer he brought to show). Unfortunately, finished or not, there is no hope for fixing this movie.

The bright spots: a fantastic soundtrack, Courtney Halverson (who is on screen for only a few minutes but I was lucky to watch a few hours later in her fine new movie Godspeed which also played at CineVegas), Megan Harvey (who plays Elody and is a major player starting in the 2nd act), and Caveh Zahedi (who plays a pinhole camera enthusiast encountered separately by the two main characters). With a little more exploration on IMDb I see that people I mention above are the only experienced actors on the film. Mizushima also clumsily works Great Northern into the plot but they make up for it by delivering a couple of beautiful tracks.

Which brings us to the reason this movie, despite an endearing setup, had no chance from the beginning: it was full of bad acting in major roles. Those who stand least among all are Richard (the main character! who is on screen nearly the entire film and does not make more than one facial expression), Richard's roommate Matt, and Richard's co-worker/friend Molly (awkward like a baby giraffe).

I've seen good movies with less talent and less eye toward "craft" but those movies only work when they are overflowing with "heart." The people who made this film probably worked very hard. It takes time, money, blood, sweat, etc. But the feeling I was left with after the screening is that they just didn't care enough--like the filmmakers just could not be bothered to try hard and take something seriously.

I guess the lesson for aspiring filmmakers is to think twice before you give your friends with no acting experience a major role in your movie. I'm grateful, at least, to have been introduced to Great Northern.