Killing Me Softly - Uccidimi dolcemente

I fail to understand why all the critics are coming down on this film with such vicious fury. Granted, this is not a Hitchcockian masterpiece, but please, give the movie a break. The same critics give decent marks for movies which are really way below this one, and sometimes even to pure trash, as long as they have a good Hollywood pedigree. Well, this one may not have the proper pedigree, but I nevertheless found it to be a very decent thriller, one that kept me interested and on edge most of the time, had a plausible story, and one whose ending was not totally predictable (which is more than you can say for most thrillers nowadays).

All in all, a good evenings entertainment for adults, well worth watching.

"Killing Me Softly" tells of a couple who has sex, gets married, and then has problems because she (Graham) grows increasingly suspicious of him (Fiennes) whom she never really got to know before the marriage (duh). On the downside, the film has a thin story full of plot holes and implausibilities with ponderous music which is always off target and a perfectly awful school girl performance by Graham. On the upside, it's a good shoot with good camera work and lots of Graham skin. Overall, "Killing Me Softly" is a classy loser only for the less discerning viewer who wants a little suspense (very little) to zone to. (C)

I rented and watched KILLING ME SOFTLY on DVD and giggled throughout the movie. It's so unintentionally funny, and silly and stupid and pointless, that I'm sure people in the near future will look back at this as camp. The film stars Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes. Heather's character goes though a number of things or does things that are totally divorced from logic. She marries a man she hardly knows and the rest of the film is spent on her trying to know her husband's suspicious past. (If Heather's character had tried to get to know him first before marrying him there wouldn't have been a movie). Heather's role is funny and oddly endearing at the same time. She tries so hard but the whole thing is so silly that her efforts are all for naught. In EVERY scene, Heather is seen with her big doe-like eyes, dropping her clothes at any given moment, looking totally befuddled. The scene when the reporter faxes her the strange messages at her office, which is supposed to be filled with apprehension, is very funny. As is the scene when Heather pretends to be a reporter from The Guardian. Or the scene when Joseph ties her down on the kitchen table, which is simply priceless. Heather, bound to the table, doesn't look terrified or stressed, she looks bored and annoyed. The entire scene is truly out of this world. After seeing it, I wondered "What was that all about?" If your new husband ties you up on the kitchen table and starts going crazy, well, there's a good chance that the marriage won't last long. As for Joseph Fiennes, well, he looks, hmm, weird. I think the director was intimidated by Joseph. It seems the director didn't know how to film him at all. And because of this, his character/performance is WAY over-the-top.

The story (or lack thereof) is so obvious, the moment the "villain" appears on screen I knew it. The revelation of the villain's motives made me laugh out loud. It's supposed to be shocking and twisted but it had me in hysterics. Add to this the fact that the director literally took the meaning of title and applied this to the film's script/action, and everything about this film ends up looking truly silly. Everything is treated just so softly (like when Heather is tied to the table). Imagine a S&M movie directed with the soft touch of a bunny rabbit.

Many scenes look like they were rushed (the mountain climbing scenes). In one scene, you can see Fiennes looking straight at the camera for a split second. The direction is not really good. The look of the film is sometimes interesting. Some scenes where cool but the whole ultra-hip look of the film will positively date it in a matter of years. The office where Heather works looks like a place where the Teletubies would feel at home. Everything about KILLING ME SOFTLY is hilarious. It's pure camp.

"Killing Me Softly" has one of those scripts that just don't give the audience a break - not only does it set up an improbable situation, but the big "twist" at the end is also mind-numbingly predictable (unless perhaps you haven't seen a thriller before in your life). The chemistry between the two leads is also lacking; Fiennes brings some physical magnetism to his role but as far as his acting is concerned, he's an inexpressive bloke, while Heather Graham is ALL TOO expressive - she overemphasizes every emotion her character is supposed to feeling by making faces at the camera. Besides, she's not even that attractive; even her co-star in this particular film, Natascha McElhone, blows her out of the water in that department. In spite of all that, Chen Kaige's direction is good, and he creates some suspenseful moments. So I give the film a generous "** out of 4" rating.

One of the worst movies I've seen in a very long time. Heather Graham can't act. If the part called for a bimbo, then maybe she fit the bill. She's almost as bad an actor as Raquel Welch was early in her career.

It goes to show what a bad script and direction can do to an actor like Joseph Fiennes who was so good in "Shakespeare in Love" and "Elizabeth". It would be hard to imagine that the good actors in this film didn't know it was a turkey when they were making it.

This film almost is in the category of so bad it's good. I did chuckle from time to time at some of the ludicrous dialog and scenes. But, if you're looking for that type of movie, a much better choice is "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".