There's a great trailer for this film that shows a couple on a date talking about a movie they just saw. It shows them in various locations and at each place, they're involved in animated discussion about various aspects of the film. Then suddenly, the sun is rising and the couple discovers they've been talking all night. When the woman realizes the hour, she takes off in a mad rush. She is late for work. When she arrives, she finds a couple of people floating face down in a pool. They are dead. She is a lifeguard. The tag line for the trailer says something along the lines of "The Minus Man, it'll have you talking for hours." It's a clever trailer for an even more clever movie!!
Holy Hampton Fancher! This guy is amazing. He wrote the screenplay from a book by the same title. The script is so incredibly well written that it really DOES leave you talking for hours. Each character is so dimensional you could eat them like a multi-layered subway sandwich.
Owen Wilson does an amazing job playing the likeable Vann. So amazing in fact, that not only does he manage to melt everyone's heart in the town, the audience falls in love with him too. That characteristic is key in creating a believable, and deeply dimensional, disturbing character.
Brian Cox is also amazing as the masochistic, fatherly landlord.
Janeane Garafalo breaks out of her "I'm so unamused" role, to play a fairly carefree, almost naive small town girl.
Some people have commented that this film moves too slowly. In making it, Hampton Fancher said he wanted it to move like a lullaby. Well, that it does. And it is as sweetly sung a lullaby as I've ever heard. I cuddled up into my theatre seat and sat back and enjoyed every minute of it.
I could go on and on for hours and hours about the complexity and implications of this movie, but I won't so you can go and enjoy it yourself! Then email me. We could talk about it for hours.
A Must See. One of This Year's Best!!!
