Petites confidences (à ma psy)

I was initially reluctant to watch this film but my girlfriend wanted to check it out. After seeing it I must admit that the film did surpass my expectations - primarily since I felt that it was not really a "chick-flick" per se. The film tends to center around the guy 100% of the time. Call it a "guy-flick" from a woman's perspective. While I'm not at all a Meryl Streep fan, I felt that she carried the movie for the time that she was on the screen. Uma Thurman can't help but be the stunningly beautiful Uma Thurman that she always is. Without spoiling anything, I think that the ending was perfectly real compared to most romantic comedies that have been released in the past. This film was one of the more pleasant surprises for me this year. At the very least it will make for a great DVD rental if you're a guy who is as reluctant to see it as I was originally.

A great, great movie, especially when one considers the stinkers that usually litter the romantic comedy landscape.

This movie was smart, funny and most importantly, REAL. The cheese is held to a minimum and characters do and say things that real people say. No monologues that sound like they were cribbed from 'Chicken Soup for the Soul', just real people reacting to each other and their circumstances.

Meryl Streep is great in this (and this is coming from a straight, twenty-something male) and Uma Thurman and Brian Greenberg have a real chemistry together. There are some real classic lines in this and it's a million times funnier and smarter than say, 'Monster in Law' or 'Just Like Heaven'.

As one who usually cringes my way through 9 out of 10 'chick flicks' this is the rare one out the ten that passes muster, and does so in a big way. I fear that this movie will be overshadowed by a bunch of other new releases when it comes out, but this one really deserves an audience.

Very underrated. One of the better films I've seen all year.

Meryl Streep is the closest actress we've got to the great old stars of yesteryear. Bette Davis comes to mind. Meryl was trim and sexy a couple of years a ago in "Adaptation" now in "Prime" she's a matronly Jewish mom filled with sense and sensibility. She is also very funny and the main reason to see this Jewish American farce. When she's on, we're on. I believed and enjoyed her predicament. I only wish the script, dealing with the relationship of Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg had been a bit smarter and more engaging. I bought that the sex was great and that Uma was discovering herself through this younger lover but their intimacy is clumsy and their dialogue very slight. It is as if the two Kauffman's of "Adaptation" were at work here and that the scenes involving Meryl were written by one and the scenes with the lovers by the other. The former ones however makes the evening a very pleasant one.

I happened to catch the second half on HBO one night. I saw the entire movie a few nights later. I could easily watch it through again -- I was really drawn into the movie. I had to look it up on IMDb just because I was thinking about it so much.

There's a lot of negative reviews here, much more than the movie deserves. Movies are like people -- some you despise, many leave you indifferent, and some just really *click*. My roommate came back from "Saw III" hyper and proclaiming it the "BEST movie EVER!!!" -- I can guarantee you he wouldn't care for this. "Prime" also doesn't have any of the typical emotional manipulations found in your average rom-com. It makes do with much subtler if still dramatic material. For example: the meeting between Rafi and David is low-key, slightly awkward, nothing like, say, the Ferris wheel scene in "The Notebook". Ryan Gosling threatening suicide to get a date is certainly entertaining, but it also leaves me slightly detached, too aware this is a story for my viewing pleasure.

"Prime" is the anti-"Grease". There's nothing STYLIZED about it; no fairy-tale ending. If you can do with such accoutrements you'll be sucked in, especially if you can relate to the very upper-middle-class New York viewpoint that permeates it. Another reviewer was quite insightful in comparing it to "Annie Hall".

As for the relentless disparagement of Bryan Greenberg in the male lead: you've got to be kidding me!!!! He doesn't play the role the way, say, a young Al Pacino would play it. His persona is understated, relaxed almost to the point of passivity, slightly unsure, sarcastic and naive and vulnerable all at once. Completely believable as a 23-year-old who would appeal to and be attracted to a 37-yr-old divorcée. A more typical male lead his age wouldn't be dating Uma Thurman, he'd be charming Natalie Portman or Jessica Alba. Take the scene where he's trying to connect with the stoic doorman -- I totally cracked up and at the same time couldn't help but admire how true-to-life it felt. Everything about that scene bespoke an upper-middle-class 20-something living with his grandparents and lacking direction.

Not to mention that the intimacy between Rafi and David felt so natural that I felt convinced that Uma and Bryan had something off-screen during filming. The way they looked at each other, shared each other's space... the lust didn't seem acted, I'll put it that way.

To Ben Younger: despite all the people out there who don't get it, there are some of us who do. You really did an amazing job, and I doubt I'll ever forget "Bubbe" knocking herself with that frying pan... Lol.

Though it's tagged as a romantic comedy, 'Prime' falls in between a comedy and a serious drama. What I liked about it is that it's a lot less sugar-coated than the usual romantic comedy flicks and more realistic (but that makes it predictable too). As a director Younger does an adequate job but he could have made the script tighter as 'Prime' does drag in the middle (only to pick up in the end). The dialogues are quite interesting and the therapy sessions are fun to watch but a few of the jokes fall flat. Meryl Streep does a good enough job (but she's not at her best and why are her eyes always reddish?) as Rafi's therapist and David's opinionated mother. Bryan Greenberg holds his own in a film with two established actresses. But, 'Prime' belongs to Uma Thurman all the way. She is simply terrific as the vulnerable Rafi and her transformation up till the end is effectively portrayed. On the whole, 'Prime' is a decent film with good performances. Not bad for a one-time watch.