vitachiel

Aside from historical correctness, bias issues and topic choice, let's start with evaluating the movie as though it was purely fictional. The biggest problem is the vast scope of storylines. Too many plots and subplots make this movie quite messy, the more so because these storylines are completely intermixed (which is needed to retain chronology). There's Jefferson's encounters with the French royalty and nobility, the romantic liaison between Jefferson and Maria, the discussions on slavery, the experiences of Sally and James, Jefferson's affair with Sally, Patsy's dealings with Catholicism, Patsy's dealings with her father's affairs, Patsy's dealings with slavery... All merged into a 90-minute feature film. Not that it's hard to follow, it's just very tedious to be warped from one storyline to the second to the third in a matter of minutes.

Kudos however to the casting director. All the actors are very much perfect for their jobs. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, who, as a self-pitied whiner, stays very close to her own self.

Beerfest is filled to the rim with jokes. Every scene is formed by a string of jokes. But what kind of jokes are we being served here? At one point in the movie I was asking myself if there would be coming any joke that I would find funny. Well, the 'cowboy and indian' joke was mildly funny. As were the bloopers at the end. That's it. And that's sad.