When Will I Be Loved

This movie got a lot of undeserved juice from Roger Ebert's four-star review, and it's just awful. I've liked some of Toback's other work, particularly "Fingers", but this thing feels like a really boring home movie on autopilot. It's purportedly about the non-adventures of this bratty little rich girl (Neve Campbell) and her no-account boyfriend (Fred Weller) and, ultimately, their scheme to seduce a rich Italian count (Dominic Chianese) out of some major money. But it takes some time to get to this plot point, and up till then, the movie just meanders in a cinema-verite sort of way that makes it seem like Toback can use it as an excuse for the picture being a dud. It's like he's saying, "Well, whatever we shot, we shot. I can't be held responsible for the randomness of events."

The movie goes from Neve Campbell meeting one person on the street to another in what I'm sure Toback would insist was "character development", but it's done in such a way that it all rings false. It's scripted without being scripted. In another words, it's contrived. When Neve's college professor (played by Toback) explains what he thinks is going on with Neve and her head games, you can almost hear the gears locking in the background. It might be the most mechanical ad-libbed sequence in history.

Toback's use of celebrity here is also peculiar. The Mike Tyson cameo is pretty funny; he actually gives the movie a momentary spark. But when Toback has Neve recognizing a bit actress like Lori Singer on the street like she's Jane Fonda, I wonder what world he's living in. This whole "expository" part feels like padding, like Toback didn't have enough legit material to go around. Then, when the action shifts to the "scheme" in the final twenty minutes, it's good - it's the best part of the film. But the effect is a little jarring. Toback goes from a lazy, dawdling atmosphere to a sequence that's scripted tighter than Abbott & Costello's Who's on First, and it just doesn't work. The two forms don't really mesh, and you get the feeling Toback only had twenty good minutes in him to begin with - the rest is like a warm-up, like running in place to get the circulation going. And I hate to sound like an old prude (which I'm far from being), but the nude shower scene is an absolute cheap shot; Neve Campbell is just being exploited here. It has nothing to do with her character or anything else; it's completely gratuitous. But I guess anything goes when you have no material. Minus credits, this thing is barely over an hour and fifteen minutes. It hardly seems worth being made.

Why the film was even made is the first and lesser of the two puzzles I came away with. The second was that the Chicago Sun Times and Roger Ebert went totally overboard in praising it. I can imagine that some misguided individuals in Hollywood thought the film would "work" or at least make a profit, but how some big-time media people be so taken with so awkward an effort really surprises me. I noticed that many professional reviewers rated the film well below 50/100 but the few comments by ordinary viewers were even more telling in terms of negative reaction. This film seems to me a perfect example of how too many of the media pros quite often give far more praise to a film than do ordinary viewers. I always read all the professional reviews and find them cleverly written and well worth the reading, but I very often turn to the comments from the crowd to bring me down to earth.

James Toback's When Will Be Loved has a very, loose, ramshackle quality that it is ill-suited for. As the film opens, it cuts back and forth, jarringly, between Fred Weller rambling on his cell phone, and Neve Campbell taking a shower. The music even changes between each cut..and it's just so sloppily done, and unfortunately, the rest of the film, for the most part, is just as sloppy. Between the music being way too damn loud (whoever mixed the sound on this film did a lousy-ass job!), or certain scenes being more or less pointless, the film is a just a ramshackle, sloppy mess. Does the scene where Neve runs into Lori Singer in the park add anything? Other than perhaps killing time...no. Is the scene with Mike Tyson necessary? No, again it adds nothing, wastes time. And the threesome in the park scene? Not needed either...as we already know Weller is a small-time bum, out for his own gratification. Why is Chianese's character a Count? That's just ridiculous..and it seriously undercuts the believability of his character...and yet his sequence with Campbell is the only one in the film that really works. The rest of it......not so much. This is primarily because of the tired,tired stereotypical small time hustler character that Weller is given to play. Weller does what he can, and is occasionally amusing, but on the whole, we've seen this character too many damn times...we know right away that he has no connections, is a liar, a loser, etc. Knowing that, watching this character is quite irritating, as it offers no surprises, but plenty o' stale crap we have to sit through. This movie is just a mess. Not completely bad, but mostly, a ramshackle mess.

I found Toback's earlier film Black and White mildly diverting, so gave this one a whirl. The scuttlebutt was that this was Neve Campbell's best (and sexiest) performance so far. Well, that much may be true-ish, but the rest of this film is, in places, almost unwatchably bad.

Most of the characters (or should I say caricatures - take the Italian mogul: did anybody find this man even remotely believable?) are without a shred of originality, and in the case of Ford, bear virtually no resemblance to human beings of the sort you or I might actually meet. It may be that his relentless hustling is *intended* to show him as a pathetic individual - but there is a fine line between depicting characters we may not like but in whom we can invest some interest as to their fate; and, as happens in this film, showing people who are irredeemably ghastly, and about whose fate we don't give a toss.

In Black and White, Mike Tyson had a very funny cameo, in which Robert Downey Junior's character tries to seduce him. Here, it looks as if Toback has simply raided his address book and shoehorned as many celebrity cameos as he could into what passes for the plot. Ooh, look, there's Lori Singer! Wow, there's Mike Tyson (again). Ooh, that really is Damon Dash! Toback's own performance as the "hilariously" named cross-cultural enabler is pure smugness in a bottle. The only honest moment is when he confesses to wanting to get into Neve Campbell's knickers. We can only speculate as to whether that is a case of art imitating life.

And Neve Campbell? Yes, she is good in this. She gets some decent dialogue to get her teeth into and delivers it with aplomb. I still think Wild Things is a better showcase for her talent.

The incident towards the end of the film was certainly unexpected; but then again, any idiot can make unexpected things happen in a film. The trick is to work up to it in *some* way. Toback is either incapable of doing this, or simply can't be bothered. The dénouement left me shrugging: so what? Who cares about these cardboard cut-outs?

Sexual being Vera Barrie (Neve Campbell) is hired by African studies Professor Hassan Al-Ibrahim Ben Rabinowitz (James Toback) as his assistant. Hustler Ford Welles (Frederick Weller) is working for wealthy Italian Count Tommaso Lupo (Dominic Chianese). He convinces sex partner Vera to spend time with the count for $100k.

I remember the main selling point for this was Neve getting naked. With the recent revelations about James Toback, it's impossible to separate the man from his work. Luckily, his work here isn't good and I'm not conflicted about crapping on this. I only feel bad for Neve Campbell. She was obviously trying to do an art indie as she searched for her place in Hollywood. The other notable is a cameo from pre-tattoo Mike Tyson. It may be one of his last appearance before his tattoo. All the cameo starting with Toback himself are disconnected. They make this guerrilla indie fractured like a student film. The central premise holds some problems mainly with the money. Surely, Vera would want a 50/50 split before the meeting. After getting paid, she could try to buy him off. The conflict could still happen after he finds out the secret but in a different way. The money part lacks credibility. Sadly, Neve's nudity is all that's left. Through it all, she somehow maintains her dignity which is far more than can be hoped for. Toback probably spent more time lining up cameo rather than writing a compelling script. Toback is unable to advance beyond his sad experience.