A Little Help

I like Jenna Fischer. Everybody likes Jenna Fischer. That said, she's like Rashida Jones, great in an ensemble, but nowhere near enough gravitas to pull off the lead. It's a question of intensity. Even in a light weight movie, the lead has to have some sort of inner tension that can be seen and heard. Fischer is just too easy to look past. You can't bring yourself to worry if she's going to be okay, because you know she will be. She radiates that innocent girlishness that makes men instinctively protective. In fact I'd wager that she's one of those women who hasn't gone more than a month without a steady boyfriend since high school, because 'good guys' won't leave her alone. Also, the directing was beyond lazy. I doubt he told anybody what do ever, including the editor. Frankly, I know a pretty talented guy who could recut this and make it a much better film. Honestly, that may be all it needs. Revised opinion, re-release it after cutting it so Fisher gets more close ups and the dialog moves faster. 6 out of 10

Revised, revised Opinion: Wrote review while watching movie (was in about 1:26). Now that it's over my advice is to avoid. Unless you're a hardcore Fischer fan, it's not worth the time investment. Everything that's set up basically just hangs there. The characters don't get smarter (except learning not to tell gigantic lies you can't support). In fact, the writing pretty much loses all direction and just becomes forgettable nonsense with no resolution, point or lesson. 4 out of 10

The only thing good about this movie is Jenna Fischer, and she's very, very good. Otherwise, the acting is mediocre at best and the story, dialog and direction are pretty bad. Only Fischer's perfect performance in a ridiculous movie makes it worth watching.

It IS a comedy, by the way, despite what some online reviewers have said. It just doesn't work as a comedy, or as a drama, or as anything else... except as a vehicle for Fischer's unique gift for playing likable, thoroughly and consistently entertaining losers, who also are totally believable human beings - not by any means an easy feat. She's almost a female Woody Allen, except she's not an obnoxious, whining, passive-aggressive, self-aggrandizing pervert.

My wife and I very much enjoyed this unpretentious film at the San Jose Cinequest Film Festival. It certainly blends comedy and drama very well, and the story line flows very smoothly. Well-delivered humor kept the audience laughing evenly throughout the story, which complimented the more somber and poignant moments. The actors, many of whom are recognizable from television and the big screen all added to the believability of the story. While I sat there and thought "I am glad this is not my family's story," I, nevertheless, could relate and was drawn to the characters and their trials. There was a certain sweetness about this story that made Laura's (Jenna Fischer) life ultimately redeeming, and ultimately a pleasant surprise to this reviewer.

I don't know exactly how to put this into words but what appeared to be a nice drama movie in the beginning turned out to be an average boring movie till the end. Overall the movie presented a psychic storyline with a disturbed girl finding her way out of her husbands death. Coming to the acting, one can say that most of the characters did justice to what they were put through. I am a kind of person who usually don't miss a single scene of movies, even I also had to skip a few parts at the end. Direction was not very good because the movie actually fail to leave some mark in your mind and it is a kind of movie that you won't even remember its name after a week or so.

This indie dramedy casts cutie-pie Jenna Fischer (of TV's "The Office") as Laura, a woman suffering from a variety of problems—dead-end marriage, unappreciative son, bitchy sister, condescending mom—that no amount of beer and cigarettes can make go away. Then things take a turn for the worse. The movie is about how lies infect the soul—how they grow, like a cancer, and end up spoiling life. There are impressive turns by Ron Liebman and Lesley Ann Warren as Laura's parents, and Kim Coates as a calculating attorney—the embodiment of Satanic dishonesty, he might as well have been carrying a trident. "A Little Help" may not wind up in a lot of the year's Top 10 lists, but I found myself caring about the characters, warts and all. (For once, Fischer is photographed in a way that is not particularly attractive). A winning effort by first-time feature writer/director Michael J. Weithorn.