Elephant Juice

I think that unless you have lived in London, you cannot understand this film. It's not bad at all. If you hate the characters, well, that's another story, the problem is that all Londoners (British Londoners) are like that, sorry! It's all about sex and nothing else matters and who has got time to know if that's right or wrong, here comes another one....

A film so bad Miramax decided to not release it in the states? In the UK shows like This Life had developed a following and others rushed to try and surf the wave. And this movie feels like a failed attempt at this venture, despite ticking many of the This Life boxes. Follow a group of university graduates now in high level jobs but struggling with adult life? Check. A white cast but with at least one member being ethnic? Check. Another gay? Check. A soundtrack featuring trendy at the time dance music? Check. Oh and add an ex This Life cast member to the line up. Check. More about her later.. With these types of movies, whether they are watchable for an audience is whether they like the characters. And in this case its very hard to, its also difficult to see how any of them could be friends in the first place.

This is a standard group of friends but some are in relationships with each other but are they cheating with other friends scenario. Its set in London and is very middle class and boring. Its a very unremarkable production, the pacing is slow and the characters simply grate. The worst being Danielle Nardini who for some reason only seems to play smug feminists who sneer at men for the entire time she is on the screen while spouting out put downs to men who for some odd reason seem to be interested in her romantically. She isn't even particularly easy on the eye so it all comes across as some kind of "strong independent woman" fantasy. Treat men like something stuck to your shoe and they will all come running. As if.

And of course the underlying message of the movie seems to be despite our qualifications and high paying jobs we really don't know what we are doing in life. Well the problem is, the majority of the audience won't really care. Who cares about the problems of the well off? Particularly when they aren't even interesting problems and you don't like the people. There is also a silly side story about a hot single mother and one of the characters, a highly qualified scientist no less, falling for her. Another "as if" moment, we are supposed to believe such a highly educated guy would choose a single mum who works in a cafe and think she was "out of his league".

The score and soundtrack are also terrible, the tracks simply do not fit the mood of the movie and are particularly jarring at key points in the narrative. This is only of interest if you want to see what Nardini did next after This Life, I have no idea why anyone would want to however, unless you thought she was somehow cool in the 90's. There are much better 90's UK movies out there, this should be at the bottom of your watching list.

The concept was good (relationships amongst 20-30 year olds in London), the script posed some good questions (`How do you choose your friends?'; `Can you tell someone you love them?'), and the settings were a refreshing view of a side of London that most of us don't see. There were flashes of interesting dialogue that had me waiting to see if eventually something worthwhile might happen. It didn't. What disappointed was that none of the good questions asked were answered (some weren't even addressed) and the not one of the characters was believable or likable. If that wasn't bad enough, the music was undoubtedly the worst I have ever heard. Intrusive, jarring, inappropriate, in poor taste and masked a good 30% of what may have been interesting dialogue. What a waste of a good concept and viewer's time

Elephant Juice comes from the pen of Amy Jenkins, creator of television series This Life, and while it isn't good, it's not all-bad.

It is a longstanding cliché that British television writers can't write for the big screen and think small. Jenkins, unfortunately, does nothing to refute this. There are even pointless headings for different sections of the film, like it has been split into seven episodes.

While there are lots of interesting locations, it cannot disguise the fact that it's still just people talking. The dialogue might be very good, but there's rarely anything important at stake.

This is less due to the poor plotting than the poor characterisation. And that in turn is due to Jenkins decision to have eight major characters. You simply can't have that many in a movie as there isn't as much time to find out about them as there is in a television series. There are two characters who are almost adequately drawn but the motivations for the others is barely there - if at all.

There is an incident in the last act that is a surprise but not in a good way. There is no reason given for the character to do what they did, so rather than being moved we simply don't care.

Two of the characters lose partners they cared about and react as if they'd lost a five-pound note. While it seemed bizarre and confusing at the time, in retrospect it was just so those characters could get together at the end with fewer hassles. It's not a feel good ending if everything that enabled it is totally unbelievable.

To be honest I preferred all the other This Life writers to Amy Jenkins but she does know how to write and there's the makings of a good film here as she clearly knows her world but it needed another couple of drafts at least.

The irony is the script was rushed into production before it was ready to cash in on the This Life success but because it was rushed both the co-investors, Miramax and Film Four, refused to distribute it. In fact Miramax subsequently closed down their UK subsidiary that produced this due to "creative differences".

This won't be in theatres for long but make up your own mind about it when it's on free television, where it belongs.

A questioning and sometimes slightly cynical commentary on love and sex and life. The ambling storyline cleverly ties together a likeable group of characters. Makes a nice change to see a film set in London on British streets with British buses and British people. 'Elephant Juice' looks like 'I love you' to a lip-reader. Go see this movie.