Director Susan Braun obviously had a very high-minded concept for "Pure": one couple's search for a new Eden in the mythical midsummer night's dream of the id. Unfortunately, her concept is flawed, and deeply so. A sea of self-centeredness, greed, and negligent dishonesty (casually deemed "a guy thing") is meant to pass for a complex tangle of ritualized human interaction. What ensues is a bad soap opera version of "Survivor", chock full of pretension and tedious psycho-babble. Apparently to ensure that no one misses a beat of the intensely uninteresting plot, an interpretive campfire skit and constant intrusive voice-overs follow the narrative. Both methods of exposition are embarrassingly adept attempts to hide the film's glaring lack of substance and emotive story-telling ability. Concept and story aside, every element of the film's production is poor. The acting is universally bad, with a quality just below that of a typical high school play. There is no chemistry whatsoever between the film's "Adam" and "Eve", no matter how many times we are made to watch their sole encounter of glowing beach sex. The writing is cheesy and unnatural. The cinematography and editing are heavy-handed when not seemingly forgotten. The sound is filled with mumbled dialogue and ambient noise. Ultimately, a concept that seems to have a smidgen of potential ends up being the worst, most amateurish film I have ever paid money to see.
NOTE: I saw "Pure" in 2004 when it played at Colorado State University. Perhaps given it's current status of "announced", the film is being re-cut (or hopefully, re-written and re-shot).
