At Last

This movie just ran at the Asheville Film Festival this weekend. It was very well received by the audience, winning the Audience Choice Award for feature film. Excellent location footage of New Orleans before Katrina and while I'm not a lover of romance films, this one is quite good. The plot involves the reunion of former teenage friends who drifted apart after a summer together in Grosse Point, Michigan. Letters written to each other were never received, rather they were intercepted by the mother of the boy, who, as a forty-something businessman, receives by accident the unopened and undelivered letters. The cinematography is terrific and the story has some excellent comic moments.

The early scenes developing the characters were a little choppy and did not flow smoothly. This did improve and the characters were very believable. I liked the cinematic technique of the scene of early character washing her face then being merged with the later character doing the same thing. This also happens at the very beginning of the movie and the very end. Also look for a mention of the writer/director (Tom Anton) in the middle of the movie. The fact that it is set in New Orleans prior to Katrina is poignant although the tight shots may have masked some of the damage. It shows the circuitous route that life and love often take. I would give it an 8 out of 10 hoping it will get some marketing along with word of mouth among movie-goers. It could be a sleeper like Sideways.

OK. So I went to see this movie on Valentine's day with my girlfriend. We thought it would be a nice romantic movie. ehhh wrong. It is very poorly made. The script is cheesy and trite, it is very predictable. The lines are awkward, and made even worse by the fact that none of the actors are competent. The plot promotes the idea of leaving your spouse and family while planning to commit adultery....something that I don't think is something that needs to be promoted. In conclusion, this is a horrible film. Cheaply made, it is based on a bad idea and made by incompetent amateurs who did the wrong thing, and then decided to tell the world about their sins. To top it all off, there is an absolutely horrific song that plays during the closing credits. "At last it's you, at last it's me, at last it's we." cheese-tastic. At Last this movie is over...at last this review is over...and lastly, I would strongly discourage anyone from ever wasting two hours of their life on this film.

What a great story--and a better picture. Clean, emotional, true to life. The cinematography is incredible and adds more to the movie than can be communicated in words--really capturing New Orleans before Katrina (the scenes in the Cemetery, as well as in the French Quarter are fantastic). The cast is strong, capturing the emotion that goes along with a lost love. I particularly liked the wife (cold as ice, exacting revenge through silence and endless hours of hard work.) The children do a great job, as does the entire cast. Tom Anton does a superb job for a first time director, I look forward to any future movies he might direct.

This movie was supposed to show first in New Orleans, but Hurricane Katrina interrupted that. It opened in Shreveport and Bossier City, in north Louisiana, during the weekend of 5 November. I don't know the writer/producer/director personally, but we have a mutual friend, and I've heard some of the story of the production of this film. It's Tom Anton's first effort, has been years in the making, and seems quite amazing to me in that light.

I'm not a big fan of romantic movies, but I rate this one relatively high. It's obviously not the product of a major movie company, but the basic story and overall execution are very good. The leading characters face a very difficult situation and are tested thoroughly. It really is a story of true love.