Multiple Sarcasms

This film is the story of a man (Timothy Hutton) who seems to have it all, and yet he feels like he's not getting enough out of life. He is an architect. He has a wife (Dana Delaney), a daughter and a lifelong friend (Mira Sorvino), but he just doesn't feel fulfilled. He attempts to write a play, and his work and family start to take a backseat. His wife doesn't appreciate this, and the two decide to split. Timothy Hutton is always brilliant, and this film is no exception, but the script is poorly written. I feel like the dialogue between the adults is juvenile. The story is great and the cast is too, but the dialogue drags it all down. I appreciate the film and I appreciate what the writer/director was trying to do, I just cannot get past the script. I do recommend it as long as you don't mind a few too many lines about the female anatomy that bring nothing to the story.

You have to make yourself watch this flick! The promotional description/summary here on IMDb certainly makes this story sound far more interesting than this movie can ever be.

It's the usual NYC setting with beautiful people in successful jobs but - oh my - the waters run deep and dark and the characters are way too introspective. Still wanting to be young and free Gabriel suddenly realizes he's in a stale marriage and has a child and he wants to be a writer. So he looks and acts like an old wino through 93% of the movie.

This type of story has 'been so done'! This flick starts sinking within the first 15 to 20 minutes - whenever you suddenly realize where this story is going. And there's the happy happy ending.

I was really looking forward to "Multiple Sarcasms". With a story about a man, basically at a mid-life crisis, who is looking for happiness in writing and in films, I thought I could really relate. But for a film about playwriting at its heart, it's rather poorly written. Many scenes telling us things that we already know. The first third of the film was introducing us to the main characters, over and over again. But I got everything I needed to know about the characters in the first scene so the rest just became a lesson in boredom.

It was supposed to be about Gabriel discovering that his happiness is rooted in writing, but then out of nowhere the main story became about crossing the line of infidelity. Not writing at all. Boredom, crossing into confusion just becomes frustration. Even with the many underrated actors, "Multiple Sarcasms" is not worth the frustration and boredom.

Another reviewer here characterized the whole premise of the movie as "preposterous". Obviously, that person has not known many people of wealth and privilege. I have personally known many people of great "success" and wealth who were not very happy. They may have fulfilled the "American Dream" of job, family, etc... but they did NOT feel contentment, fulfillment or joy. One recently committed suicide... a very well-off and talented guy.

So, it's not "preposterous" at all. It's quite common and very understandable since our values here are based almost completely on money -- which is only a tool and you can't purchase happiness, only distraction.

I guess it all depends on what one brings to a movie. If I were only going to watch this film once, I would miss most of it. On a film binge, long vacation, I watched 2 other films of other genres before I got to _Multiple Sarcasms_. I wouldn't classify it as a comedy and I got unsorted mush. I even stopped in the middle and went to bed. The next morning I decided to see it through. I will watch it again. Scenes of exceptional beauty, characters that are real, believable (uh, is this a movie or did I get into somebody else's head). Terms one learned at school, well, for example about theater -- for example, "vraisemblance" -- help to "defamiliarize the text". We may have seen movies with bits, tropes, business, cutting and editing like this before, but this one is still original, subtle, and inviting with sufficient refractions with stage and staging to place us both inside it and outside it. Very near the end of the film, the writer places himself as an actor on the stage, then also to one side as editor/actor critiquing the writer/actor. This was not over done. Life into stage or film is very strange and wonderful. There are characters playing the role of audience members whom we have gotten to know during the course of the film. The music was excellent, the scenes, the character development of supporting characters was fine (getting good and drunk with "Eric"). We could probe the messiness of the protagonist's life "as life" with the "vraisemblance" probe (Living out of a suitcase? His dwelling was no suitcase.) By the end of the film we have seen a man's life shuddering into chaos as he takes up writing, and the miracle of the process is that a beautiful coherence emerges. He has become more grounded, centered and real. The process works! I should write a play. This is pretty good film alchemy. India Ennenga's "Liz" was radiant.