Esperança e Preconceito

Sorry, Haters (2005)

An emotionally intense but cinematically thin movie. I'm not sure where that leaves a viewer--I think it depends on what you want from a movie. The theme is ripe. An immigrant (a Muslim) with immigration problems meets a troubled woman (played by Robin Wright Penn) who abuses his situation. At it's most intense and personal it's moving and disturbing, and sad, if such terrible drama can just be plain old sad.

But there are improbabilities (including the way their first meeting in a cab becomes very personal, with another woman and her child, in the blink of an eye). And there is a kind of plainness to it all, the writing, the filming, the story itself, that is linear and not quite enough to keep it going. It's true, I think, that being low budget was not an issue, but even within the style it was filmed, there might have been a better sense of camera-work and editing. The one thing that pushes forward best is the acting, often conspicuous for exceeding the writing. Director and writer Jeff Stanzer deserves a nod for trying, but he's only taken this half way, was a movie.

Do I recommend this? I think only if you like Penn, like indie films about serious contemporary issues regardless of quality, or if you are interested in the theme of Muslim integration and devotion to not being integrated. It might surprise some people with its honesty and tenderness, between the long lulls. But others will sense, in the first twenty minutes, the tone of the whole movie, and might back out. For those latter, the ending is an intense surprise, and disturbing to the point of demented, so there is a need, perhaps, to stick it out, just for that five minutes. But then again, maybe not.

A kind of psychological mystery that tends toward the thriller genre that is a also finely-tuned character study that features a brilliant performance from its leading lady and--most tellingly of all--approaches how we live now and the events of 9/11/01 with an original perspective that makes that day frightening again in a whole new manner (and that's a mere portion of what you'll get), SORRY, HATERS is so shocking in so many surprising ways that I haven't stopped thinking about it for several days. It succeeds as entertainment, provocation and mind-expander, and seems to grow more powerful and mysterious the more I consider it.

Robin Wright Penn, who has helped improve movie after movie from "The Princess Bride" through "Forest Gump," "White Oleander" and "Nine Lives," reaches a new plateau here: that of taking absolute ownership of a film. She manages this despite the very fine work of the rest of the cast, which includes Sandra Oh, Josh Hamilton, Elodie Bouchez and an especially rich and beautiful performance from leading man Abdel Kechiche (who is himself writer/director of the 2005 Cesar-winning French film "L'Esquive"). The writer/director of "Sorry Haters" is Jeff Stanzler, who made the interesting "Jumpin' at the Boneyard" back in 1992, and two short films since. That this 2005 piece didn't put Stanzler on the map of big-time movie makers will remain as mysterious to me as does his movie.

I will say no more about the film, except that you might, at its conclusion, want to turn to the Special Features and watch the round-table discussion between a group that includes Tim Robbins, Mary Louise Parker and Julian Schnabel, all of whom seem as blown away by the film as was I. Certainly, for all of us, Muslims in America and a sweet phrase like "I want to give you something my parents gave me" may now resonate in quite a different manner.

This is a film about Ashade, a Syrian chemist who drives a cab in New York, and a woman who works for a TV station, and 9/11. I hesitate to say more about the characters or plot, because all of them are complex and tricky, and saying any more would lessen your experience.

What I can tell you is that the plot has a fascinating Hitchcockian twist in the middle, and an ending just about no one sees coming.

On the other hand, watching a film about Moslems, terrorism, and one truly nasty white girl left me immensely depressed. I wasn't seeing any light at the end of the tunnel, no shining sanity anywhere. Maybe that was the point.

The screening I saw featured the director/writer afterwards for Q&A, but I was so bummed, I just fled the theatre. Not a bad film per se, but disturbing and dark.

This acting in this film was excellent, and I found it very powerful and gripping with a very unexpected ending. It is too bad that smaller films like this, that are thought provoking and leave you thinking well after seeing it, often get overlooked.

As disturbing as Robin Wright Penn's character is, you can't take your eyes off of her and wonder what she is capable of next. And Abdel is also very captivating. The emotional twists, the way these two psychologically torture each other consistently leaves an element of surprise. Some may love it, some may hate it, but with these two controversial characters, I would be hard pressed to hear anyone leave this saying they were bored.

The one thing that is sad, is that indie films like this that are not getting the media attention deserved, means that Robin won't even get an Oscar nod, cuz she acted her ass off! Props to the writer/director Stanzler for taking a brave chance on this material.

This is one very riveting psychological drama that just continues to evolve it's statement of purpose throughout the well plotted piece. Working on a tiny budget, this film was shot on less expensive equipment in merely 15 days, but the movie still manages to be about as relevant and fresh as is possible in a post 9/11 context. The hopefully soon-to-be-known Jeff Stanzler weaves into his tiny project about a mysterious, bitter divorcée and a humble Arabic cab driver, the psychological micro and macro-cosmos revolving around the current political climate viewed through an emotionally unstable context. Truly tough to describe the profound themes examined and revealed in this movie without taking away from the wonderful grace which with those plot devices are announced, but we can definitely assume that the two lead performers do an extraordinary job at keeping the material grounded and relative, however irrational the final result may be- it is nonetheless strikingly potent, and an all too rare refresher into the darkness and secrets one mind may be able to harbor while always looking the other way in front of a population.