Nobody Walks

Nobody Walks (2012)

** (out of 4)

A New York film student named Martine (Olivia Thirlby) comes out West to finish her movie on insects and ends up living with a happy family. The father (John Krasinski) agrees to help Martine finish the film but soon he ends up falling for her, which sets off different emotions for his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt). NOBODY WALKS has some pretty good stuff in it but in the end it's just another independent movie that thinks it has a lot more to say than it actually does. If I had to pick one word for this film it would be "mildly." I say that because everything here could have mildly put in front of it. The story is mildly entertaining. The idea that everyone wants what they can't have is mildly interesting. The way the film gets its point across is mildly interesting. Everything in this movie manages to be mildly something but unfortunately it's just not clever enough or showing us anything that we haven't already seen and this is what keeps it from being much better. We've seen the perfect household fall apart with the site of a beautiful woman using her sexuality so that's not giving us anything new here. The way that it all happens is, you guessed it, mildly interesting because as a film buff I found it entertaining that the husband was helping the girl edit a film. The sex scene happens in a sound proof room. I'm not exactly sure if this student's film was supposed to mean something to the viewer but I took nothing away from it. The best thing going for the film are its performances with Thirlby once again really impressing me. She's certainly a very charming actress and the way she pushed the sexuality here was quite memorable and one hopes to see more of her going forward. Both Krasinski, DeWitt and Dylan McDermott are good in their parts as is India Ennenga who plays the daughter. NOBODY WALKS isn't going to appeal to too many people but I think fans of the indie scene might want to check it out even if it doesn't reach the levels one would have hoped for.

You know when someone is telling you a story and you're kinda into it, wondering when it's gonna get good, and then they just stop talking? And you're just like "uhh, you're done?"

That is what this film is. Not gonna lie, I was above averagely interested in the plot, and was interested in the film mainly because I wanted to see one of my favorite actors try to play someone other than Jim Halpert. It may take John Krasinski a bit of work to be able to drop his "Jim" persona, of which I didn't see much in this film, so good job there.

I would like to commend the young actress who took on this film and turned it into something that wasn't a complete waste of time. I would never be interested in watching this film again, but I won't say it was an offense to the film world.

Overall, just skip it. You don't get any insight into life, you don't come away with anything, you don't really care about the characters, but if you have or had a life that was plagued with promiscuity, you might be able to relate, but also may be repulsed by some of the characters.

Just saw this movie today and was a little disappointed with it. The acting is decent enough, the dialogue is not terrible (except for one scene, which will be obvious), the characters were interesting. It was all enough to make me engrossed in the film, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. I kept waiting for the sh** to hit the fan and it never did.

Sorry to say that the story seemed a little under-developed to me. The stakes never seemed high enough to make you really worried for any of the characters. And what was supposed to be the climax of the film is really just a tiny spurt of nothing.

I hope the writer continues to develop further, as she obviously has the ability to create unique and interesting characters, but she just needs to learn to do more with those characters. She certainly had the time to do so in this film, as the running time is short and there were definitely sub-plots that could've been cut out entirely (the Italian teacher for instance)

Given the screenplay was co-written by Lena Dunham, creator and breakout star of HBO's "Girls", I was hoping this 2012 indie relationship drama would resonate strongly like Lisa Cholodenko's acclaimed Los Angeles-set films ("Laurel Canyon", "The Kids Are All Right"), especially with such a smart cast of actors. However, something feels amiss in director Ry Russo-Young's coolish approach to a familiar story of adulterous deception and family dysfunction. The pacing feels glacial, and the characters are just not that involving emotionally. Perhaps that was the intention in showing the shallow nature of the lifestyle being portrayed, but it rubs off on the film's inertia leaving it feeling quite flat. The setting is LA's funky-chic Silver Lake neighborhood where sound engineer Peter lives with his psychotherapist wife Julie along with their young son and her teenaged daughter from a previous marriage, Kolt. They epitomize the laid-back, everything's-cool attitudes one associates with affluent Southern Californians.

Enter Martine, a New York acquaintance of Julie's college friend who happens to be an attractive 23-year-old experimental filmmaker. She has agreed to work as Peter's assistant in exchange for him helping out on her latest project, an arty video installation revolving around close- ups of ants. How Martine emotionally invades the family is the crux of the story, and to the credit of Russo-Young and Dunham, she never comes across as an unrepentant interloper like more commercially driven exploitative films have done in the past. It's just that the plot pretty much goes the way you would expect it would go from the outset, although the characters carry decidedly ambiguous natures that make some of the story turns feel more complex than they really need to be. For instance, the inevitable tryst between Martine and Peter lacks believable passion because it feels almost matter-of-fact. In hindsight, I feel like it should have been the driving force in pushing each character toward self-examination.

The cast is not really at fault here as the acting, for the most part, is sensitive and assured. Olivia Thirlby (the best friend in "Juno") provides the requisite gamine quality needed to make Martine credible as an object of obsession even if her character remains a cipher throughout. The always becalming Rosemarie DeWitt ("Rachel Getting Married") delivers a thoughtful balancing act between earth mother and jealous wife as Julie. John Krasinski has a bit harder time escaping his amiable good-guy image from "The Office" and "Away We Go", but he does provide some surprisingly heated moments as Peter that make you wonder if he could do a greater variety of roles on screen. As the constantly yearning Kolt, India Ennenga appears to be channeling early Claire Danes, but she makes the character's unrequited love palpable. In smaller parts, Justin Kirk as a horned-up Hollywood screenwriter and Julie's attentive patient and Dylan McDermott as her self-possessed ex- husband bring much needed alpha energy to the proceedings. A late meltdown scene with Kolt's smarmy Italian tutor (Emanuele Secci) feels very out of place. Lethargic viewing.

Anyone who really doesn't like LA would be foolish to watch this, but on the other hand, those of us who do like LA could do worse. I think it's not as bad as some people think it is. Yes, the characters are neurotic and horny navel-gazers. There are a lot of attempts to have sex in this. Some viewers might have a problem with an intergenerational pot-party scene. I don't think I've seen one of those before. The photography is pretty good and the acting too is not bad. Some have compared this film to Laurel Canyon which stars Frances McDormand and Christian Bale and is better. But it is a similar look at kind of a rarefied milieu wherein people can be annoying. But that's not really news, is it? I actually think a good rule of thumb is, if you start watching a movie and find you really don't like it, it's OK to stop. I'm just saying don't avoid things for the wrong reasons. Nobody Walks is 81 minutes and almost good.