Vidas contadas

It's rare that a film by an independent filmmaker can pack such a lot in the way of human interaction. Jill Sprecher, inspired by a mugging she suffered, co-wrote the story in which her movie is based, with her sister Karen. Ms. Sprecher shows an insight that is rare in the young directors starting in the business today.

If you haven't watched the film please stop reading.

The basic idea for the movie seems to be how interconnected we human beings are. This premise is expanded as we watch how all of the characters we see in the film, in one way, or another, share a moment in their existence where they touch each other's lives without even being aware of the fact. Ms. Sprecher weaves a fine web, as she shows the different situations in the movie.

Troy, the self-centered lawyer touches Gene's life when both are drinking, for different reasons, at the same bar. Gene is older and wiser; at the time they meet Gene is feeling sorry for himself, having being "downsized" from his job. Troy, being in high spirits, after having won a case in court, looks down to Gene, a man who he perceives as a loser. Troy's own life will go through it's own turmoil after the involuntary accident where he injures a young woman in a deserted street. Instead of helping her, he flees the scene, leaving the girl to what could be a sure death.

Gene is the center of the story in many ways. We see him as the man in charge of an insurance claims department. There is a man who works for Gene that is the epitome of good naturedness, a real kind person who is always bringing things for everyone in the office. When Gene is asked to reduce costs in his area, he fires Bowman, the man, who according to logic, must be let go first, being the last one hired. We wonder for a moment if this is just a way for Gene to get back at Bowman, because it appears this man irritates him and his coworkers. Bowman, who up to that moment has been so optimistic about things, immediately becomes a sad man.

Walker, the university professor is unhappily married to Patricia. We watch both as their marriage comes to an end. Walker is carrying on an affair with another woman from work; he ends up living alone in a small room. Not only does he lose his wife, but Helen too, the woman he was having the affair with. His life and Troy's meet, if only briefly when he buys the lawyer's car. Walker is in a way responsible for the death of one of his students who is not doing well in the Physics course.

Then there is Bea, the young woman who cleans rich people's houses. Together with Dorrie, she fantasizes what it would be like to live in one of those fabulous places. Bea, who almost died when she was a child, is not bitter about her experience. She is a kind soul who is good to everybody, no matter who. Her life and Troy's become entwined in a second without realizing, or knowing him, as his car hits her in the desolate street where she is walking to the house of one of her employers to return the shirt she has just finished resewing for him. After going to her mother's home from the hospital, we see a gradual transformation in Bea. She's still a kind person, but now she has a different attitude toward life and the bad hand she was dealt.

This film brought to mind Arthur Schnitzler's play "La Ronde" since the idea is basically the same. We humans tend to overlook the relation we have with one another, and how, in some ways, we touch the life of other people, the same way they touch ours.

The acting is first rate. Ms. Sprecher ought to be congratulated in the way she is able to present her story and get outstanding acting by all the principals and even those in small roles. Alan Arkin, as Gene, is amazing. We see in his face how everything is affecting him at all times. John Turturro gives a complex reading of this university professor. Clea DuVall brings such a luminous aura to Bea, that it's impossible not to feel bad for what has been done to her; she gives a subtle performance. Matthew McConaughey's depiction of Troy is good.

There are a lot of minor roles by actors of the stature of Shawn Elliott, Frankie Faison, Tia Texada, Rob McElhenney, Barbara Sukowa, and William Wise, who is perfect as Bowman.

Congratulations are in order to Jill Sprecher who shows a talent for directing real people in real situations. Judging by this effort, she has the potential of going far.

What a great film. The ties between these disparate stories are wondrously woven, and the sudden eye-opening twists are amazing. The spare music is a perfect backdrop. The acting is marvelous, with Amy Irving as the neglected wife of the melancholy professor and Alan Arkin playing the driven and lugubrious businessman with lots of problems and. I hardly realized who it was until halfway through the movie. I would compare this movie to other great art movies such as My Dinner With Andre, My Brilliant Career, Days of Heaven. It evoked in me similar emotions. If you are feeling down and want a big lift, I highly recommend this wonderful film. It deserves an 8 out of 10.

This is divided into sections each about an aphorism. Lawyer Troy (Matthew McConaughey) is celebrating a win at a bar with his colleagues. Then he hits a pedestrian and decides to drive off. Walker (John Turturro) is a physics professor who is cheating on his wife Patricia (Amy Irving) and she suspects him. Beatrice (Clea DuVall) is a maid but her sweet blissful nature is shaken after getting run over by Troy. Gene (Alan Arkin) is a cynical insurance claims manager with family problems and bitter at his happy co-worker.

There are interesting stories and good performances. The cast is amazing. It aspires to be philosophically deep and meaningful. The meandering nature of the story telling leaves me wondering if the movie is actually saying anything. The rotating characters do not allow the tension to build. It needs to rebuild every 15 minutes. I wonder if the movie would be a lot better following one character and dropping the philosophical pretense.

In `13 Conversations About One Thing,' the `one thing' that everyone keeps having conversations about is whether or not happiness is possible in a world that seems to be made up of little more than a series of random events haphazardly strung together. Just as everything seems to be going your way, an unexpected and unforeseen `event' may knock you completely off course, thereby depriving you of that `happiness' you felt, moments before, lay just within your grasp. This view of life seems to be rather popular among filmmakers this year, having also been explored in some depth in the sci-fi thriller `Signs' this summer. `13 Conversations' takes a more low-keyed approach, providing a series of interlocking vignettes from everyday life that, when pieced together, provide a possible answer to life's ultimate question.

Writers Karen and Jill Sprecher (the latter also directed the film) have fashioned a complex narrative involving a number of characters whose paths cross in bizarre and often shocking ways. In fact, the film is rather unique in that the structure actually BECOMES the theme, as we discover that events that seem random to us - and indeed to the characters - at the outset actually come together to form a meaningful pattern. As one character says at the end of the film, life really only makes sense when we take the time to look back on it, for it is only from that perspective that we are able to discern the overarching pattern and meaning of it all.

All of the many characters in the film are struggling not only to define happiness but to attain a measure of it for themselves in a world in which they are made to feel like mere helpless pawns, blown about by the whims of `fortune,' `luck,' `chance,' `fate,' whatever one wants to call the `power' that seems to determine the courses our lives end up taking. Matthew McConaughey plays a handsome and successful public defender who feels that he has achieved happiness in his career only to have it ripped from him when he runs over a young woman at a corner and leaves the scene of the crime. The woman herself (Clea Duvall), before the accident, is a sincere believer in a higher power that watches over us and guides us along the path it most wants us to take. Yet, after the accident, she loses that belief, coming instead to see life as a chaotic jumble of chance circumstances, devoid of meaning and purpose. John Turturro plays a college professor suffering from the classic symptoms of major midlife crisis. He abandons his wife (Amy Irving), conducts a meaningless affair with a coworker, and finds no relevance or fulfillment in his teaching job or in the students he could be guiding and helping. As a Physics teacher, he knows that the universe is NOT random, that it does, in fact, operate within a series of finely proscribed natural laws. Perhaps this is why he is the one character who actually tries to buck `fate' and to take proactive measures to change the course of his life. The problem is that the course change brings him no more satisfaction than did his previous life path. Perhaps, most fascinating of all is Alan Arkin, a businessman so unhappy with his own life that he takes pleasure in ruining the life of a co-worker who seems somehow to have attained the happiness that has eluded the rest of us.

`13 Conversations About One Thing' is definitely a movie that grows on you. Like `Go' a few years back, the makers of this film respect the intelligence of their audience. They gather the strands of their story slowly, thereby allowing us to make connections and to eventually come up with the theme on our own. As the film's director, Jill Sprecher never hurries us along. In fact, much of the profundity of the screenplay is brought out by the elegiac, lyrical tone she establishes throughout. The quiet, unhurried pacing of the scenes puts the audience into a reflective state of mind that helps us see beneath the deceptively simple surface of the film's action.

McConaughey, Duvall, Turturro and Irving are all outstanding in this film, but it is Arkin who soars in the key role of the disgruntled businessman. His sad-faced, understated portrayal of a man so caught up in petty bitterness that he will willfully destroy a harmless fellow human being to make himself feel a bit less miserable is shattering in its brilliance. He has truly never been better. Ditto for the other actors, for this is a great ensemble cast, even though most of the performers never appear in any scenes together.

`13 Conversations About One Thing' is a film that feels like it has REALLY BEEN THOUGHT OUT ahead of time, not thrown together in haphazard fashion as so many other films appear to be. And that, given the theme of the film, is exactly the point.

My wife and I launched immediately into a conversation about this film before the end credits had even finished rolling. It's the kind of film that makes you want to apply some of its ideas and themes to your own life and experiences.

At first I was worried. When the film began, I thought it was going to be an episodic experimental piece, with 13 different scenes each dealing with an aspect of happiness. This bothered me, because the first segment of the film left me wanting more of the same story and I would have been disappointed if the screenplay had never come back to it. However, the first few segments that seem at first to be unrelated begin to mesh in a fluid way (but never in a way that feels forced), and what happens in one begins to illuminate the actions and feelings in another.

Because of it's episodic nature, the actors don't get a lot of room to flesh out their characters, but the performances are still strong. Alan Arkin is especially good (he always is).

This one comes highly recommended.

Grade: A-