XX/XY

I saw this movie at the GenArt Film Festival 8 April 2003. As I watched the movie I kept wanting to like it. For one thing it is indeed an extremely realistic portrayal of a certain class of people. And it was introduced by the GenArt film programmer as being "young and hip -- very representative of our audience". And yet...for two hours we are treated to a portrait of a bunch of shallow, miserable, unhappy, selfish, clueless people with apparently no work responsibilities and no families and no relationships outside of their whining, mewling, sullen, mopey complaints about each other interspersed with bouts of apparently pleasureless intercourse. 45 minutes of the college version of this followed by 45 minutes of the soulless successful yuppie version of this. They cried, they screwed, they lied. They hardly ever laughed and it was a real strain near the end to watch them trying their damndest to have fun with a little karaoke. In the end, while I appreciated the skillful realism of the portrait, I couldn't get over the fact that I just wouldn't care about these people in real life. I made this comment in the Q&A afterwards and the director was intolerant. A few people afterwards came up and agreed with me. Also most of the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes had the same impression. Still, it is valuable as a detailed anatomy of the insipid.

Excellent cast and intensity throughout. All characters and situations relatable to the twenty and thirty-something audience and quite believable. I just thought it moved a bit too slowly and felt long. It takes a drastic leap in time in the last half, and the cast pulls it off. But it does slow down the film a bit. Very sexy film.

I have a general positive bias towards this film because I have experienced so much of what many of these characters went through and thus was able to relate quite well. It is a film that is very in tune with the real emotions that one goes through when presented with such a bizarre situation. Even for those who have not encountered the kind of problems presented in this film it still will leave the viewer with many quandaries left to answer and will allow your mind to venture into places you did not know you could go. The writer of this film, I am almost sure, must have been through much of what was depicted in the film...it seems almost biographical. I look forward to seeing more of what this writer has to offer.

"XX/XY" is a relationship flick about an FFM trio of young adults who become close, drift apart, and then rediscover each other years later only to find their reunion raises issues about mate selection. The film is a naive drone of chick flick yammering which fleshes out the core characters superficially leaving the audience to marginally engaged voyeurism. It does, however, paint a somewhat realistic picture of the trade-offs life requires as opposed to wandering into romantic fantasyland. An okay drama-lite for the less than middle-age crowd. (C+)

I'm not sure why, but while I was at Hollywood Video, I ran across XX/XY and decided to give it a shot. What did I have to loose? It was free! :D I'm in a special club. Anywho, XX/XY takes on at first this gritty type of independent film with a couple of actors I knew. Mark Ruffalo who I just recently saw in In the Cut and Kathleen Robertson who I have seen in Scary Movie 2.

The film is about Mark who plays Coles, a wanna be director who meets Sam, a simple girl who lives with her roommate, Thea, played by Robertson. Coles, Sam, and sometimes Thea hook up, but it is Sam and Coles that truly fall for each other. But when Coles goes too far with Thea, Sam breaks it off with him. They meet again ten years later coincidentally and despite Coles being in a serious relationship, questions if he still has feelings for Sam.

It's an interesting movie, but I did like it's true honest drama and human emotions. Although I felt like I could easily see these situations on a talk show, it still wasn't a bad movie to watch.

6/10