Guest Artist

So enjoyed this well written film. Full of emotional and powerful performances. Jeff Daniels is excellent and Thomas Macias' debut performance is wonderful and very believable.

Found completely by accident but my goodness this film is wonderful. Only 85 minutes long but worth every second of my time. Daniels is brilliant.

Jeff Daniels is the driving force of this film. He wrote the play and plays the lead in the film, and his performance is most of what makes it worth watching. His ability to portray a broken man that is, at his heart, still trying to create, but unable to fully face is demons, is beautifully tragic. What makes his performance even better is the way that he's able to maintain a semblance of decency even when he's vomiting on a train or passed out drunk on a station pew. Harris's character is broken, but he's not unintelligent; he knows how to pull himself up, but he refuses to do so because he is used to the way his life is now. Daniel's range of emotion is really put on display in a wonderful way, and, as he is the one that wrote the words he's saying, it's easy to see why he's so earnest about the words that come through his character. There is truth in what Harris's character says, even though it might not be easy to accept. But while I enjoyed the themes, Jeff Daniels' performance, and most of the writing, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a great film. Macias is a stage manager working at the Purple Rose Theatre Company in Michigan, and it seems to me that most of his acting in this film would feel more at home in a play than it would in a film. Stage acting and film acting are very different beasts. For the most part, Macias holds his own, but there are scenes where I didn't quite buy his earnestness. Also, there were a few audio issues throughout, where characters would fade away and come back in one take, and there were a few scenes of overlapping dialogue in the train station that were simply impossible to discern what was being said.

Too bad this movie is so unknown and difficult to get hold of, because it honestly is TRUE to LIFE, with GREAT acting performances and a touching, witty story. It is beyond me, why this movie has gotten so little attention, although I read it was due to judicial corporate reasons. Sometimes movies simply fall victim of a bad release and lots of judicial corporate shenanigans. This is one of those unfortunate stories, but hold your horses, because this is definitely still a great gem.

For anyone who loved Jeff Daniels in the past or simply wants to see a true to life comedy about a looser, this is the perfect (unknown) gem for you!

Greetings again from the darkness. "Based on an incident which became a play which became a movie." It's with this note, the film version of Jeff Daniels' 2006 play begins. Daniels also stars as (fictional) playwright Joseph Harris, who won a Pulitzer Prize, an achievement he rarely lets anyone forget. Harris' success seems to have left him tormented and blocked, as he hasn't written anything "readable" in 20 years ... a tidbit we learn from his agent (Erika Slezak, more than 2200 episodes of "One Life to Live"). The two meet for "coffee", which is literary code for early drinking ... a hobby Harris seems dedicated to during all waking hours.

That scene with Mr. Daniels and Ms. Slezak is one of the two best in the film - the other being near the end. The two long time collaborators wage a war of words - some offensively, others defensively - and the agent gives as good as she receives. When he claims to hate television, and proclaims "I'm a playwright", she counters with "You're a dinosaur." We learn much about the Joseph Harris character in this sequence. While it's easy to label him a burnout, we sense there is something deeper that has him dreading the trip from New York City to Michigan to fulfill a contractual obligation with a local theater group.

Once Harris arrives in small town Michigan, the vast majority of the rest of the film is shot inside the quaint train depot ... a station that most of the passing trains don't even slow down for. Over-eager playwright-wannabe Kenneth Waters (played by newcomer Thomas Macias) is late to meet his hero, and for that, he is subjected to mounds of verbal abuse from Harris, who can barely maintain consciousness over inebriation. Despite his love for the bottom of bottles, Harris proves always capable of a vicious diatribe directed at easy target Kenneth. However, periodically mixed in with the poison, are some words of wisdom for the young man.

The bulk of the film is a competition between Harris and Kenneth. Can the young local theater apprentice convince the washed up legend to stay in town and fulfill his theatrical duty? Adding spice to the proceedings is the train master (played by Richard McWilliams), who not only wields a wicked baseball bat, but he also sees, hears, and judges everything that happens in his station.

As part of the ongoing negotiations, Harris agrees to read the first play Kenneth has written. The young man eagerly awaits the insightful feedback from his idol, but the moment becomes a lesson in worshipping heroes ... they are just as human as us. Mr. Macias does manage to mostly hold his own in what easily could have been a one-man show, if not for Harris' need for someone at whom to direct his rants. We half expect Kenneth to mutter, "I'm your number one fan!" as he absorbs the insults and takes in the life lessons.

The backstory for this one is pretty interesting. Mr. Daniels admitted in an interview that he wrote the story based on actual events in the theater many years ago involving playwright Larnford Wilson, who might not view that as a compliment, were he still alive. This is also the first film under Grand River Productions, a joint venture of Mr. Daniels, Tim Busfield (who directs the film), and Mr. Busfield's wife, actress Melissa Gilbert ("Little House on the Prairie"). It was shot mostly in Chelsea, Michigan where Mr. Daniels lives, and where he founded his Purple Rose Theater Company. And the homegrown aspect goes even deeper. Busfield's son Wilson Coates Busfield is the DP, while Daniels' son Ben did the composing.

It seems obvious that Daniels learned some lessons on structuring dialogue from his time on "The Newsroom" with Aaron Sorkin. We hear it in such lines as "I'm a playwright. I'm eternally serious", as well as the ongoing battle between hope and cynicism. Typing out the opening credits is a nice tough for a movie featuring a writer, but the "I'm not sorry" bits are overplayed. As mentioned previously, the two best sequences are that opening in NYC, and the scene outside the depot near the end, when Harris comes clean on what he's written and why - a scene that also includes the best and most heart-breaking line in the film. It may not be "The Great American Play", but there is plenty here to take in and think about. Sorry, not sorry.