Bittersweet Place

This is a beautiful film -- honest, provocative, sad, funny and completely original. The acting is superb -- Seymour Cassel gives a memorable performance, as does Glenn Fitzgerald in a pivotal role as Moishe. The writing is extraordinary, subtle, fresh and deeply felt -- a very special film. Saw it at Tribeca Film Festival and was incredibly moved.

Alexandra Brodsky gives us a great first feature and tells the story of relationships (and the people in them) desperate to rise above their own limitations. It also contains several poignant love stories, wonderfully rendered and heart-wrenching. The film has a great look to it . . . and you feel like a quiet observer of their lives in the same way that one discovers characters slowly in a Mike Leigh film. Amazing . . . and lovely.

Poignant films will ask (or show) a few powerful dramatic questions, then at least try and find a resolution to them before the end of the story. Even if the question is not definitively answered, at least an attempt is made. This film on the other hand, seems to be intended as nothing more than a trivial barrage of random "tragedies" effecting characters so shallow, that their trials and tribulations are impossible to even remotely sympathize with, no matter how familiar they may seem. I honestly cant remember when I last saw a film this direction less, my sympathies to anyone forced to sit through it in its entirety.

I can best describe this movie as adjacent.

We're introduced to lots of people, but all the mechanisms of film are used to enforce a protective distance between us and them instead of stripping either them or us.

While the script and characters are well and good enough as a base, the film can't seem to figure out what is or isn't important--and so neither can I.

Most disappointing, however, is the glaring lack of cinematic vision. Almost nothing at all is done visually, the camera work is pretty tepid (probably less than half a dozen interesting shots, and most of it looked downright PBS movie quality--and not in a good way), and a meandering and spotty dabbling with music that got me just interested enough to be half-puzzled, half-annoyed.