Silver Tongues

Having seen the original incarnation of this, back when it screened with Simon's other short "Rebel Song", I was intrigued and excited to see how it had evolved into a full-length feature - filmed in a different country and with new lead actors.

"Silver Tongues" is deserving of all the high critical praise and festival awards it has garnered, being - as it is - an engaging thriller that keeps you constantly guessing, and with a pay-off that tells you enough but no more. It drew me in to such an extent that I was genuinely surprised when it ended, its running time having flown by.

As an intelligent, witty, captivating story, it is very hard to fault. If you get the chance to see it, do so.

Its dark creepy original and yes lacking talent sometimes but still at least a7 compared to a lot of indie sundance bonding two people forming a relationship mumbo jumbo vomit that people waste their lives producing, making. This better than that stuff. This is probably one of the best love stories written in a long time. This should be remade with better actors though. Not pretty actors just better. They also need a better soundtrack like something off drive album. None of this indie sundance chime and bells softy stuff that makes real men vomit and real women yawn. Reminds of crash by cronenberg slash the sci fi writer - not Gibson - the other dude. I want to play games too now. This movie makes me want to play so bad! Did u see that butt in the first sequence. Oh man.

Simon Arthur expanded his 2007 short about two lovers who travel place to place, almost randomly, wrecking peoples lives and inflicting emotional cruelty upon them. While this idea is a good one --- it's been favorably (and accurately) compared to Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men" --- it doesn't satisfy us the way that film did. It still feels at the end of the runtime as a bit of a nihilistic let-down.

The film almost works better as a quartet of short films all stapled together. Every single one of these vignettes is tight as a drum and very absorbing: they suck you in with the vacuum of a veteran con artist playing short-change tricks on you at a bar.

That the core of the film is held together with icy nimbleness by TV vets Lee Tergesen (Red Widow, The Big C, Army Wives) and Enid Graham (Gray's Anatomy, Boardwalk Empire) is both shocking and exciting. One doesn't expect the broad range and elasticity their performances bubble over with. Tergesen is blessed with a neutral, almost banal affect that reminds you of Bill Pullman's knack for portraying casually moral-less characters and Graham wears an almost eerily poker-faced mask throughout, lustily daring you to read her thoughts, and then laughing disdainfully at you when you make the mistake of attempting it.

If you like suspenseful drama pieces and plays, don't miss this one. It has all of the elements of vintage LaBute or David Mamet. It will make you think and stay with you, even if it doesn't quite gel into the cohesiveness that might otherwise render it a classic.

Silver Tongues is a deeply engaging psychological thriller about characters operating outside the rules of civilized discourse. Why do they do it? Why not? I came upon this film without warning at the Annapolis Prentious Film Society screening, and felt that it was better than nearly every other film I saw in 2011. If we're going to nominate 9 films for best picture, Silver Tongues should have been one of them.

Lee Tergesen is a superb actor, and this script allows him to explore all of the crazy stuff that must be lurking in his subconscious. Enid Graham is sexy and just as in touch with the outrageous. The script is well structured, with a lot of engaging subtext. Independent cinema at its best.

It's kind of hard to talk about this film without spoilers, but it's great to watch something where I had NO idea what it was going to do next. I can almost always say with a film, "Okay, one of two things is going to happen here at the ending", and it always does. I had no idea how things were going to pan out here, and what did was mind-blowing!

Its obviously low budget, and there's a couple of scenes which don't work as well as others, but overall it's great, and Lee Tergesen gives my favorite performance of the year so far. I love Oz and Generation Kill, but it bums me out that he doesn't do more films. Hopefully this'll help.