The New Age

Yuppie couple. Falls on hard times. After too many good times. Lose jobs. Have affairs. Have crisis of identity. Then set up in business.

That's a rough sketch of what happens, and it's quite watchable. Judy Davis looks incredibly young and sexy. So does Peter Weller. And it's written by Olly Stone too...What more do people want?

I Never 'New' It Was This Good!!!

The response to this film was a little more negative than I expected. I liked the film better than Tolkin's "The Rapture." It's one of my favorites to watch for non-serious viewing.

The film has a quirkiness, even a spookiness, that, apparently, many dislike and don't understand. I wanted to recount the plot; however, since that's not desired, I don't see why other reviewers think the plot is so implausible.

Peter Weller's and Judy Davis' characters seem to be mismatched partners, but is that so implausible? This dissonance was probably intended, but disliked by many viewers. Anyway, the main characters compromise themselves in many ways: I think Peter and Judy do well in the movie.

I also like Adam West in his small part, and the under-rated Patrick Bachau plays his part as a new-age guru with urbane spookiness. Corbin Bernsen has a small part at the beginning as the boss for Peter Weller's character (Weller's character is conveniently named "Peter.")

Finally, I like the depictions of certain new-age ceremonies and personalities--this is rare in movies.... I think the movie is thoughtful. It does not have much action, but don't most action films today flagrantly violate the law of "suspension of disbelief?"

This film will not be liked by the multitude in America with the attention span of a gnat.

Critics seem to have split widely on this film, and it's easy to see why. It's a rather painful, plodding thing to sit through--yet one can't get it out of the mind afterward. Writer/director Tolkin has a lot of disturbing things to say about post-industrial affluence in America in the 1990s, and in trying to say everything in one movie he has piled it on so thick that the brain requires a postmortem to reflect. Judy Davis, as she was in "Husbands and Wives," is dynamite, and the film is worth seeing just for her. The film has an uncanny eye and feel for the bleak interiors of the contemporary American service economy: the boutiques, the high-rise telemarketing boiler rooms, the house-poor interiors of career people who are hardly ever at home, etc. The film's title refers to the spiritual quest of the couple to find a meaning to their existence, or at least some alternative approach to life to their destructive materialism. How they go about it is all wrong, of course. In true hedonist fashion, they try everything. At the same time they seek a simpler, spiritual, non-materialistic life via a bunch of wacky gurus and cultists, they are indulging in carnal and other pleasures as diversions. When they open a small business, ostensibly to gain more control over their lives and income, the forces of the world are worse than any bosses. In all of this, they seem to be outside of everything they do, as in dreams when you watch yourself and are powerless to control the changing scenery. Despite their doldrums and hostility, this is a couple who have too much in common to split. During the course of all this, Tolkin gets plenty of jabs in about an American economy that seems to be teetering on wisps of hope rather than on any true productivity. By the end, the "new age" looks uncomfortably like a very old one, in which the law of the jungle reigned.

Wealthy LA couple Peter and Katherine live comfortably, spending on credit and having affairs. When Peter quits his job as a recession looms the couple find that money is tighter and the values they hold dear mean nothing. Can they get in touch with themselves to navigate through their journey of life.

This film seems to be an attack on the yuppie culture in LA, with their materialism, their spiritualism and their aimless, work-shy lives. It seems this way for the most part but towards the end seems to say that we can all be happy if we accept who we are and confront it. It doesn't quite ride with me but the film up till this point is good - it's interesting and a bit moving to see the couple's relationship rise and fall with the difficult times. However once it falls back on spiritualism and the like it loses a lot of credibility.

Peter Weller and Judy Davis are both good in the leads, managing to display the correct amount of arrogance and emotion during the story. Adam West has a small role and is not great - is it just me or does everyone else still see Batman when they look at him. Samuel L. Jackson has a small cameo as a motivational salesman (like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenross) and he shows off his trademark powerful performance - but he's not as good as Baldwin was (the material's fault).

Overall a good attack on materialism but the spiritual stuff doesn't work.

I liked this film because it does a good job of making the viewer consider what is important in life, and why. On the other hand, it is not the most exciting movie ever made. I recommend this if you want a story to ponder that exposes modern values to criticism. I give it a 7/10.

Peter and Katherine are a typical couple of California yuppies. They want to be cool, the want to indulge themselves, they live lavishly on their credit cards, and they hold "spiritual values" above wealth and work. Unfortunately, when their careers go down the toilet during the recession in the early 1990s, they fall upon hard times. They try to start an independent business, but their easy and hedonistic lifestyle prevents them from putting in the blood, sweat, and tears that are required for success in retail. Their spiritual values are of no help when things get rough, because their "New Age" values are really just a justification for selfishness and egocentricity.

The movie is the story of their loss of innocence. To get their lives back on track, they have to work hard at jobs that simply are not cool. Their elitist attitudes must give way to sacrifice and common sense. It is not clear whether this is a triumph or a tragedy for Peter and Katherine. That is left up to the viewer in this one.