When Will I Be Loved

I watched this movie to look at Neve Campbell.....possibly the reason the movie makers made it. She is beautiful and a fine actress. A lot of the dialog was interesting,seemed to be a lot of ad libbing. What the heck was Lori Singer doing in the movie? Neve's character meets her in the park and says "Hi Lori" and they talk a few minutes about movies. Mike Tyson also makes an appearance as himself and seems to have some acting talent. The film starts and ends with Neve Campbell in a shower. The rest is a waste of eyes and ears. I usually agree with Roger Ebert,but he was one of the very few critics that liked the film. He gave it a top rating. Maybe he loves Neve more than me.

There is no need for the box "Contains Spoiler" on this movie because there is no plot to spoil. It's basically a mental rant of characters placed in unlikely situations that leads to an obvious conclusion. I'd say it was like softcore, but even the sex scenes, of which there are way too many for a legitimate movie, are dumb. What little character development there actually is, is completely trite and without depth. Aside from a somewhat questionable performance by Neve Campbell, the film is littered with boring and typical acting by the "not quite making it" crowd. Another triumphantly pointless and boring movie by Toback- hurray!

I am sorry, but this might have been the absolute worst film I have ever seen. I am not usually a harsh critic, but this movie made me ashamed to call myself a fan of Neve Campbell's work. It has no plot, makes no sense, begins stories that it doesn't finish, and goes nowhere. In a word, it sucks. I mean, who cares about a spoiled, rich girl and her sexual escapades. And wow - she's like girls too. A novelty in twenty-first century film-making. Not even the sex scenes were stimulating. Personally, I could have done quite well without being subjected to Neve's pained expressions while being done from behind by her slimy pimp of a boyfriend. And what is with the "African" professor? He is there in the beginning, and then suddenly he's just gone (thank god). I'm not sure if the fact that it is barely over an hour long is a positive or a negative. Negative, because who wants to pay what it costs today to see a film for a mere hour of movie-watching, but positive because I don't think I could have stood a minute longer of such utter crap. I don't think I have ever seen so many people walk out of a theatre mid-movie. The only reason I didn't leave myself was my unfulfilled hope that somehow the movie would redeem itself with an interesting ending. Apologies for my crudeness, but crap is truly what this wannabe Cruel Intentions meets Wild Things meets Indecent Proposal is.

This movie got a lot of undeserved juice from Roger Ebert's four-star review, and it's just awful. I've liked some of Toback's other work, particularly "Fingers", but this thing feels like a really boring home movie on autopilot. It's purportedly about the non-adventures of this bratty little rich girl (Neve Campbell) and her no-account boyfriend (Fred Weller) and, ultimately, their scheme to seduce a rich Italian count (Dominic Chianese) out of some major money. But it takes some time to get to this plot point, and up till then, the movie just meanders in a cinema-verite sort of way that makes it seem like Toback can use it as an excuse for the picture being a dud. It's like he's saying, "Well, whatever we shot, we shot. I can't be held responsible for the randomness of events."

The movie goes from Neve Campbell meeting one person on the street to another in what I'm sure Toback would insist was "character development", but it's done in such a way that it all rings false. It's scripted without being scripted. In another words, it's contrived. When Neve's college professor (played by Toback) explains what he thinks is going on with Neve and her head games, you can almost hear the gears locking in the background. It might be the most mechanical ad-libbed sequence in history.

Toback's use of celebrity here is also peculiar. The Mike Tyson cameo is pretty funny; he actually gives the movie a momentary spark. But when Toback has Neve recognizing a bit actress like Lori Singer on the street like she's Jane Fonda, I wonder what world he's living in. This whole "expository" part feels like padding, like Toback didn't have enough legit material to go around. Then, when the action shifts to the "scheme" in the final twenty minutes, it's good - it's the best part of the film. But the effect is a little jarring. Toback goes from a lazy, dawdling atmosphere to a sequence that's scripted tighter than Abbott & Costello's Who's on First, and it just doesn't work. The two forms don't really mesh, and you get the feeling Toback only had twenty good minutes in him to begin with - the rest is like a warm-up, like running in place to get the circulation going. And I hate to sound like an old prude (which I'm far from being), but the nude shower scene is an absolute cheap shot; Neve Campbell is just being exploited here. It has nothing to do with her character or anything else; it's completely gratuitous. But I guess anything goes when you have no material. Minus credits, this thing is barely over an hour and fifteen minutes. It hardly seems worth being made.

What a real bummer. I have to lay most of the rap on Mr. Toback. First, inserting himself into an already short movie (that must run 81 minutes with opening AND closing credits) appeared both self-aggrandizing, unnecessary, and a near complete digression (as was the lengthy cameo by former boxing great Mike Tyson). I would elaborate but I don't want to ruin some questions that might arise should you be paying attention (Picture Michael Moore on the Atkins diet, wearing a dashiki).

Neve Campbell is thoroughly charming and totally wasted as the lost, passionate rich girl. Bottom line, is that there will be thousands make off of her nudity in this flick. The nudity only consists of a shower scene. The sex scenes are little more than bumping and grinding and contrived, and I can only wonder if the talent were as uncomforable making those scenes as I was watching them.

But back to the erstwhile Mr. Toback, if you listen carefully to his voice early on, then you'll likely hear it in the other characters as well. His New York chatterbox cadence becomes tiresome.

I had hoped for better. Ms. Campbell is a major talent is one or two films away from breaking out super huge. Mr. Toback is also talented though this certainly isn't the work to pin his fame on. I wish them well in their future endeavors, and mourn for the eighty-one minutes I can never get back.