3 Backyards

I will never receive a sufficient explanation as to what ties together these three very boring and time-consuming vignettes. For example A man observes a woman trying to get a job in a café. He watches her as she unsuccessfully attempts to do so. This man who was previously indifferent to his own wife is now suddenly absorbed with overwhelming sympathy for a person he has known for exactly 3 minutes. He then proceeds to traipse through a very dangerous and substandard neighborhood looking for her. Are we supposed to buy this notion?

A neighbor jumps at the opportunity to take a mysterious Hollywood personality for a ride to catch the ferry. An unforeseen interruption of her day is insignificant compared with the possibility of ingratiating herself with the new VIP in the village. She is spurned. She then is transformed into a rock!

Utterly contrived and unbelievable.

This is a dreadful film, a terribly dreadful film. I alert all those who may read these reviews to avoid it if you're looking for a productive way to spend a couple of hours. A total waste of time.

Was such a waste of time .No Aim , no sound track , no connections , not even philosophical.I wish I could buy back the time I wasted watching this film.You will get board waiting for something interesting to happen.There was one scene when Falco was trying to find out whether the lady who was in the restaurant was the same lady who got hit with the car accident and you say oh here it comes , this is the threshold of the film.The scene ends suddenly with no explanation , and absolutely no connection to the next scene. This film is really a shame on the film industry and a disrespect for all viewers because it does not respect their time.

From the writer and director Eric Mendolsohn whose only other film is one of my favorite movies of the last 10yrs or so(Judy Berlin) comes this humble charmer of a film, '3 Backyards'. Here we have in the span of a single day in a mildly upper class neighborhood on a bay in Long Island, three stories unfolding at the same time but that never directly touch each other. The movie is beautiful, humble, small-scaled, well acted, and refreshing. Though it may be disceptably simple, it never deceives; the moving camera being just as intrusive as we want it to be as it floats in on the scene, the characters or the clouds or the leaves on a tree, the somewhat old fashioned dissolves used liberally yet tastefully. Three little gems; three little peeks into the lives of these folks on this particular day. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that at an hour and a half, the movie ends too soon. I wish it could have kept on and on. One story is about a man (played by Elias Koteas) having marriage problems who when his business trip gets cancelled last minute, instead of returning home, hangs out near the airport hotel and begins to follow a mysterious woman One is about a little girl who on her way to school loses an expensive bracelet of her mother's and who must retrieve it from a seemingly dangerous backyard before she can return home. The third story concerns a lady (played by Edie Falco) who is given the honor(much to the envy of her neighbor) of driving a local, semi-famous movie actress to the waiting ferry. We go back and forth between each tale seamlessly and by the end, though the characters do not literally ever interact, there is some heart-pumping, unnameably agreeable cohesion to it all. Now that I realize this sounds awfully similar to a mundane movie review, I will stop and simply encourage anyone so inclined to go see it. It's playing now at Cinema Village on 12th st. near Union Square.

Of the 2 rating - one is for Edie Falco, who plays the only character that has any (in this film) and whose vulnerability isn't accompanied by a musical score that is reminiscence of Psycho and/or the Perils of Pauline! I liked the neighbor, too. (Note to Edie - You should have tossed her a-- out of the car.)

The other is for the beautiful images and photography,in this indulgent waste of time.

The rest of the characters were mere contrived vehicles for emotional manipulation and senseless studies in unrealistic settings. NIMBY!

I resented being taken for such a ride, but what really infuriates me, are self-impressed reviewers who have the "magic" to see into the true and deeper meaning of the film and rave about it. Yuck!

Three separate stories that never intersect and never really align to explain why these stories are in the same film. Sure, you can say that the main characters all have "challenging days" and "learn a lot about themselves", but that does not help this movie FEEL like a movie. Rather it feels like three short films strung together with flute music. We never learn enough about these characters to really care about them.

Yes, some of the photography was beautifully done but much of it seemed self-serving as if the Director made this movie to amuse himself. 10 minutes in, you are already tired of the slow zooms and fades that are "played with" throughout the movie - something you might expect from a 20 year old, student filmmaker. It is almost as if, after the shooting was over, it became obvious that there was nothing compelling on the celluloid so it became necessary to distract the viewer with optical effects.

Critical reviews have been positive though - I can't help to think these reviewers are just so sick of main stream Hollywood, they find it necessary to prop up every art house film that takes a chance.

The actors do what they can with very little to work with, but their efforts can't save it. There is very little here.