The Park Bench

I was almost halfway through this film before I noticed there was virtually no mise-en-scène. Take that is a high compliment.

I found myself asking if I could have come up with the budget for this film. It's a fun concept that never fails to intrigue!

The place setting comes alive solely through the narrative, and live it does. Awesome! Actors, words, a little lighting. Millions are spent to bring huge films to screen, but then a little gem like this comes along and says "Hey, why all the fuss? Tell a story."

Unpredictability is not the gold standard in film. Story telling is. Okay - I get it's not epic cinema, and doesn't come with a surprise twist ending - but the essence of what film strives to be is present and delivered.

This is a sweet movie about a budding romance between a tutor and her student. They sit on a park bench and the film jumps from one meeting to the next with animated titles between them. It is cute, and one reviewer said that it didn't rise above that. I found myself, however, musing over what I thought was the film's question, "How do you know love when you find it." I don't often muse about romcoms after I see them, so I would say it was more than just cute.

What a sweet film! It sort of crept up on me how much I liked it. The two leads are so charming and real. The dialogue feels very natural. The stars have a chemistry together that is a delight to watch with each bringing their own personalities to their characters. The writing is excellent and is both insightful and witty. There is an innocence to this movie that is refreshing. The creativity of adding the animation is a very nice touch. It adds a new layer of story-telling that illustrates the way we open up to people and reveal pieces of ourselves. Nothing was forced or over the top. I am going to start it again and watch it all over. I hope more people discover this gem of a film.

The story involves characters I don't care about as they are so vacuous. They are people who utter polysyllabic technical words used by people who critique literature technically, thinking that makes them intellectual. Worst they think there's absolute value in other people's opinions about story's.

Apart from this pretense at being "clever" when the characters come across to me as vacuous People with the mental age of children, the characters and story board are clunky as hell.

Most of the film it appears is shot on the same park bench (cheap I know - I get it they are showing "they can" but actually can't! ) Presumably they had waivers to be able to film in a park somewhere / why not pick some alternate locations ? After 1 hour they finally get off the bench for the clunkiest tracking sHot ever. The composition is awful (both characters bang in the centre of the screen) rule of thirds ?!?! Hello ?!?!

9 minutes to the end there's another location - lying on the grass . I felt like cheering. The most interesting thing that had happened in the last hour.

Ok I'm harsh here on the photography. It isn't too bad - it's in focus mainly - the exposure is usually ok (sometimes underexposed) - err ok I know I'm being too techy there. The editing . Nooooo - at the end of each scene there's a terrible slow fade to black - then fade back to the same scene - but it's ok they have different clothes so you can tell it's a new scene -- err actually you can tell it's a disguised jump cut -- come on !!!! It's just not necessary!

The actors do pretty well, they depict vacuous characters reasonably well - but are wrestling with a terrible script, and poor direction.

Deep thoughts/ themes? I've no idea - I simply couldn't keep interested enough to think at that level about the film.

I had to start this review with 20 minutes to go: as essentially it had got to the point of losing me as an invested audience member.

"I'm going to get married tomorrow at 2 and I'm going to be happy" I've just heard the heroin say. Oh groan.

There are lots of conceptually stunning films Well executed about interactions between pupils and teachers - this is not one of them - try - good will hunting educating Rita, the history boys etc etc. This does not figure in that list.

Films about love - again this one is cringe worthy.

The story board is also poor.

When there is a montage - the montage depicts Exactly what is being said. The person who wrote the story board obviously doesn't understand that with film - you either depict things in the dialogue or visually - you do not have to say "we got on a bus" as you show them "getting on a bus" just show them getting on a flipping bus!!

I gather it is described as a romantic comedy.

I can buy the romantic bit - the two characters do finally get together, but comedy ?!?! There's no way I'd have known had I not read that. There seriously is no comedy in this. The odd (and I mean odd) mildly amusing retort from one character to the other (2 or 3 Maybe in the film?) as you'd have in any normal conversation between two people.

The good bit about the film ? It's pretty short as films go, at not much over an hour. Excellent. Pacing would have been better if they'd edited it down to bantam weight 20 minute art student overly long production though, needing some further editing.

Unfortunately I can't give it lower than 1 out of ten which is unreasonably high.

It appears Turkeys are not just for Christmas.

I thought this movie was going to be slow and simple, but it was so much more than I originally thought. I really enjoyed it so much. It was charming and strangely moving. It hit me on a much deeper level then I had anticipated. The story follows two people who are forced together to pass a college literature class. The situations and dialogue that the two main characters share just feel so detailed and real. I love the way the stories are played out in animation. It adds another layer to the whole film. A big part of the success of the film is the two leads - Walter Perez and Nicole Hayden. They're so fun to watch and they're relationship with each other feels authentic. I saw it at a festival and can't wait until it comes out on DVD.