Book of Love

This is another poor concept indie film with songs that distract tossed in. Songs with untalented voices. The film's style gets in its own way. Each scene is way too long. This is the result of a cheap and in-experienced director who is afraid to do editing. Almost every scene needs 1/3 to 1/2 of it cut out. This is not a genre, this is simply bad film-making. Total over use of songs, that makes you reach for the fast-forward button. The story comes across like a half-baked 5 minute short film, with no real ending to it. Instead of focusing on the story line first and make it great, it was simply made longer and the result is very boring. When John Cleese talks about writing the great 1/2 hour Fawlty Towers, he and co-writer Connie Booth spent six week writing each show. They spent 2-3 weeks on just one the plot. This film is totally absent of this kind of attention to deal, hoping that the audience will somehow be confused with the dragged out scenes thinking it is some sort of genre. You find yourself asking yourself what this story is to be about or if there even is a story. The characters, even the husband and wife barely bond together. The two women, they don't come across as a couple really either. When you take a bad story, bad music, bad direction, bad editing and the wrong casting, you end up with a film like this.

a bitter one. because , the film propose a provocative moral lesson. correct, not real original, but seductive. a meet between a young man and a couple. the storm, the revelation of crisis, the only reasonable choice. and Cambodgia. not the most convincing performances and a simple story. and few hot scenes. a secret. and the answer who escapes the film from platitude. without be an admirer of it, "Book of love" is a reasonable good film. for questions, for Gregory Smith work, for the exploration, in beautiful manner, of the temptation, sin and the force of secret.

This movie was okay. The story line is just very far fetched. Basically, the movie is about a possibly newly married couple (this part is vague they keep referencing their Cambodian honeymoon)who befriend a teenage boy who lives in a dysfunctional home. Passions ensue between the young man and the wife and the story goes from there. Anyway, Frances O' Conner playing a 27, or excuse me just turned 28 year old is laughable. She is so clearly in her mid to late thirties. The characters lack any depth and you don't feel sorry for them or connect with them at any level. There is really no chemistry between any of the characters. Although Simon Baker is gorgeous to watch. If there are slim pick-ins' at the movie store you might want to pick up this flick.

I was certainly surprised to see that so many IMDb reviews had given high ratings for this film. Personally, aside from the effectiveness of the feeling you get as you become involved with the characters (see below), I thought that the characters themselves were either annoying or completely stupid and that the movie itself, overall, lacked any novelty and really enough substance that, at least for me, would have me holding it in such high regard.

'Book of Love,' if nothing else certainly brings out the awkwardness of a couple distraught by one's extramarital affair (even if only brief). Do they just pretend nothing happened? Or, even if they try to deal with the situation, there is always that little reminder in the back of their heads that this person has slept with someone else...can they really be trusted anymore? 'Book of Love' at least does this much effectively, allowing us the vicarious uneasy feeling that at least the married couple seem to endure after the affairs is made known. As for everything else, however, the situation is neither knew and there is relatively little substance to deal with (which may explain why we stroll through scenes habitual nonsense like those of Simon Baker urinating or some moments with Gregory Smith).

This is the story of a young couple (Frances O'Connor and Simon Baker) who befriend a fifteen-year old kid from the neighborhood (Gregory Smith). The story is simple: the wife, not at all seductive in the way we may picture a voluptuous Mrs. Robinson type, has an affair with the boy. There is relatively little to suggest that there was any kind of rift between O'Conner and Baker's character from the beginning, so what reason she may have for submitting to the boy (other than oddly being aroused by his skinny body one afternoon in the ice cream shop), she has an affair with him. She later admits this to her husband and the rest of the movie is the three of these people trying to restore things to some kind of normalcy that existed before the mess happened.

But, there is too much unbelievability and not enough sound reason, for the affair to have happened in the first place. Was she just bored? Stupid? And really, what the hell did she think was going to happen when she told her husband? And, why was Gregory Smith's character all of a sudden aware that he'd done something wrong only when the wife tells him that she confessed to her husband? How idiotic.

And then, in that sort of 'Dreamers' or 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' way, to throw this story into a parallel with bits of history about the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia (Baker's character is a history teacher at an all-girls school).

Nonetheless, the rest of the film is these three characters existing in a very strange relationship, probably with Baker's being the most permanently removed, Gregory Smith being the one to pretend that nothing happened and that everything will probably be okay (or at least have the presence of such), while the wife seems to be mad at the husband for forcing the three of them together again and throwing it in her face.

There isn't a whole lot there. None of the characters are all that interesting and in the end, I came away from it with an almost indifference for the story and characters. What's the big deal? And yet, while some did criticize this film as being the worst that Sundance had to offer that year (I would agree), many did praise it. To my fellow IMDb reviewers: it is not sacrilegious to admit that an Indie film (even one from Sundance) is not great. Not even good. This one included.

i really enjoyed the Book of Love, it was filled with emotion and the directing was wonderful. i saw it at Sundance and felt the acting included some of the best performances that i saw there. Simon Baker's performance was outstanding and definitely deserves recognition. the movie was also humorous and the music was amazing!! Clem Snide adds a great touch to the soundtrack and the placement of the songs in the movie really highlight key moments. I also thought the Book of Love was much more impressive and compelling than the similarly themed movie, The Door in the Floor. the ending was a realistic and thought provoking choice that did justice to the intelligence of the rest of the movie. i definitely recommend this movie!