Funny Face

Two strangers who are dealing with their own form of grief, bound over the course of 48 hours.

This could have concluded in 30 minutes or less. The run time is stretched out because of long shots of walking, or other activities the characters take part in. I wouldn't have minded this if the story was strong. We have a guy dealing with his family home getting demolished, and woman dealing with death. These characters don't have personality. The female lead was kinda pointless, she didn't add anything to the story. They don't do anything, but mope around. Maybe that was the point, cause in real life people deal with trauma internally, not everyone is going to react like joker. But I think it could have been more engaging. It's advertised as a thriller or horror, but is nothing like that at all.

There was one scene where a shoplifting is taking place, and this was very well done. It put me in the perspective of the shoplifter and what it would be like to get caught. I got excited cause I thought the rest of the movie would have stuff like this, but this was short lived.

Good acting with a dark, brooding, bizarre protagonist. Kept my interest but slow going at times. Some will say this is a story about nothing. For me it felt like a 21st century Dickensian social commentary about the haves and have nots. Would have rated higher if not for lackluster ending.

OK, I'm done watching Tim Sutton movies.

It's not that Sutton isn't talented, but since his visually stunning debut "Pavillion", his creative vision keeps battering the same one wall, like a stymied writer-blocked film student.

Especially after "Dark Night", Sutton drew a lot of comparisons to Gus Van Sant, whose "Elephant" was similarly structured and themed. Sure, "Dark Night" meandered, as all of Sutton's films do, but it did it in such a curiously intriguing way, showing you characters and situations that when they weren't odd or slightly askew in a way you had to work to articulate, the film was at bare minimum striking to look at. On a macro level, it had a lot to say.

"Funny Face" has a premise that seems intriguing, but it's hung on a cast of the dullest characters Sutton has yet created. They aren't exactly unlikable, and for brief periods the boy-girl protag's relationship and shared grief over lives lost/ abandoned does work.

But then it's as if Sutton remembered he's also got a plot to run. This constant down and up shifting in the pacing only emphasizes Funny Face's threadbare conceits --- it's attempts to draw parallels between the protagonist and antagonist, and the few sledgehammer blows of symbolism (the pink neon sign was laughable) make it self-conscious and embarrassing. The limited character palettes guarantee all the performances come across as either stilted or overplayed (especially by the villain).

If Sutton's previous films did nothing else, they carried a bit of subtlety and grace. Funny Face's repetitive nature and lack of any substantial dialogue, combined with the basic ordinariness or ugliness of it's surroundings and leaden juxtaposition add up to nothing, at least nothing worth sitting still for at 93 minutes.

This movie had it's moments, but in the end, I was left with nothing. This film was pretty much pointless. Or if there was a point, it went right over my head. Cosmo Jarvis was great in this, but the movie itself goes nowhere. It felt like they were building up to something great but nothing happens. It had some good cinematography and acting but no concrete plot. Not a film I'd recommend. 5 stars.

The movie itself is poor, kinda went nowhere, but the acting from Cosmo, is nothing short of breathless. As a sufferer of anxiety/depression I identified with him immediately. The meltdown in the car, I cried.