Sam - Un amore inaspettato

I saw this on Amazon Prime Movies, and while I'm glad I didn't pay to see this, I am glad it's getting some exposure. I can't think of one aspect of this film that hasn't been done better by earlier films. The exception is the female lead. Natalie Knepp takes what seems like an ambitious student film and gives it professional polish and a genuinely likable character. No easy feat considering the clunky cliches and cartoonish characters. I really don't want to savage this film. It was obviously a passion project for at least some of the folks involved. It's heart is in the right place, even if it does seem like am ambitious student film rom-com that tries but can't get out of its own way. I'm glad I saw it, because it put Ms Knepp on my radar. I haven't been this surprised and impressed by a performer since I first set eyes on Parker Posey in House of Lies. Sam introduced me to Natalie Knepp, whose resume needs to be much larger than it currently is. Still, what other titles I was able to track down confirm my positive first impression. Watch this film with low expectations. It's not as bad as some other reviews claim. It may not be original, or have witty dialog, clever situations and richly drawn characters, but it's not entirely without charms. Notably the fully committed performance and empathetic charisma of its lead. In the end, I'm glad I watched it.

The premise is hardly original, but it is developed here in a competent, direct and uplifting way.

Many of the scenes and much of the characterization are definitely on the unsubtle side, but I think that works well in the end. The characters are well established and grow in interesting and convincing ways. I particularly liked the interactions between Margaret and Samantha.

This film starts incredibly slowly. The camera work and lighting are good, but if it weren't for that, it would play like a college film project. The dialogue is slow, and predictable, with unnecessary pauses and characters feeling very 2 dimensional. The pacing was painful at the beginning, which had me reaching for the remote just looking for a scene change. Once Natalie enters the picture however, the energy improves, though the pace and timing never fully recover.

Fortunately Natalie's energy and interesting character choices made this film entertaining enough (at least relative the the price I paid) to see the movie through to the end.

In the end, despite its reasonable-budget looking visual style, a well acted female lead, and beautiful cityscape cinematography worthy of a much better production, this movie is a slow, occasionally funny, but largely forgettable comedy that will have you wondering what else you could have done with the last 2 hours of your life.

After reading the positive reviews here, I thought that this was possibly one of those underrated movies that don't catch on because the plot was too feminist-driven or silly or whatever. Boy, was I wrong.

At first I thought the acting was bad (and it was at times), but then I realized that it wasn't the actors as much as it was a combination of a terrible script, terrible direction and sub-par production.

I expected the movie to play up some of the gender norm clichés, so as to highlight the change from Sam to Samantha. But this movie goes further than that. It is clear that everybody involved in the final production of this movie has never met a real person in their life. The clichés were not funny but offensive. I have to imagine this movie was written by some rich kid in Beverly Hills and their connected parents helped to pay for production.

Every character was a ridiculous caricature. I don't know who I am offended for more, men or women. Even the non-gender things were clichéd, like the names of things. Every line felt like it was written by a young high school student. I mean there's concise, and then there is straight to the point regardless as to whether the dialogue is believable or not.

This movie was not funny, not smart, not well put together, and not worth your time.

I gave it three stars: The first because it IS a movie. The second for giving out-of work actors some screen time. ...?

Didn't like it at first, but stick with it-it keeps getting better! The transformation from so-so to good is surprising. Glad I didn't abandon like I was tempted to. It's worth watching. Enjoy!