Eat with Me

This movie was really bad. Not the worst movie I'd ever seen, but a waste of time nonetheless and infuriating to watch. Here are the reasons I hated it: - Acting. Some of the most inexpressive faces and bodies ever seen on the silver screen. No believability to the characters. You really felt they were "only pretending". The best actor of the group, to me, was the character Maureen. - Dialogue. I think a high school student could have written the dialogue. - Cinematography. Completely uninteresting way to film a movie. The angles and shots felt like they were taken by any random person simply holding up a video camera. - Predictable storyline. Slow pacing of movie. Overall, thoroughly unenjoyable to me - I also find the existing 8.3 rating on IMDb highly, highly suspect.

I skipped over this movie quite a few times on Netflix before finally deciding to view it. I'm glad that I did. Eat with Me is a wonderfully touching movie about personal growth and communication in relationships. Many of the performances are stellar with Nicole Sullivan's turn as the kooky neighbor a stand out. But Sharon Omi's performance as a wife and mother not really sure how to fulfill either role was just mesmerizing in my opinion. Her expressions of bewilderment, of longing, of concern, and ultimately resolution are powerful. Omi is not only my new favorite actress but my new favorite human being. Eat with Me will make your hungry ... for something more out of life.

Okay IMDb you need to fix your rating system. It's a very sweet down to earth life film that doesn't try to be anything more than it is. It has very funny moments and awkward ones. You will enjoy it a lot more if you don't put everything under the microscope.

Shannon Omi played the role very well and it was very impressive to see an older Asian woman as the main character. I enjoyed watching Emma's journey of discovering/reinventing herself and breaking stereotypes as an Asian woman. Overall it was well developed with solid characters and good watch for anyone who wants to try something outside the mainstream.

I saw this film at Frameline 38 in San Francisco on June 26, 2014 at 4 pm at the magnificent Castro Theater. This is the funniest movie I have seen in years. Outstanding performances from Sharon Omi and Teddy Chen Culver as Mom and Son - who have no idea how to communicate with each other. Mom leaves Dad (because they don't know how to communicate with each other) moves in with Son and wackiness happens. Nicole Sullivan is the free spirited next door neighbor who steals every scene she is in. David Au's writing is brilliant and Nicole's comedic delivery and timing is perfect. George Takai makes a wonderful appearance and there are some dumplings thrown in the mix. This is a fabulous, fun, family film with food and everyone should see it. I saw 25 films at Frameline this year and this was my favorite.

The characters aren't interesting, the story isn't interesting (or plausible), and the pacing is excruciatingly slow. I don't mind slow if it's good slow. This is bad slow.

There is nothing original to be seen here. All these characters--even these Asian characters--have been seen before. The dialog is completely flat. If there's an uninteresting way to say something, this writer found it. There were a couple scenes where I could pretty much say the line to come before it was said--it was that predictable and trite.

It was difficult for me to believe the central character was gay. A gay guy who owns a restaurant that's failing because the food is so dull? I don't think so. Not that we know what's wrong with the food exactly. We just know that nobody likes it. The miraculous turn-around ending of the movie was just as inexplicable. Better dumplings? Nice chairs, nice white tablecloths? Wait, what?

Dumb me. I thought I might be in for an Eat Drink Man Woman quality movie, and perhaps that's what it aspired to, but this is the polar opposite of that film.