Nobody Walks

Martine (Olivia Thirlby) is a young artist making an art film about insects. Peter (John Krasinski) is a sound engineer helping her out to finish the film. She slowly draws the attention of Peter and creates conflict with his wife Julie (Rosemarie DeWitt).

Krasinski is playing against his usual nice guy type. He is still playing a version of it but corrupting it. It's actually quite off-putting to see it. Thirlby is wonderfully charming as a girl who shy away from commitments. She's one of the more interesting young actresses around. She doesn't overplay the role. She neither the victim nor the aggressor. The daughter Kolt played by India Ennenga has an interesting role. All of it should add up to a very compelling movie. However it feels rather under written and empty. The characters act but without major consequences. The couple's marriage wasn't much to begin with, they didn't really fight for it, and it isn't much at the end. In the end, everybody walks.

I went into this film with high expectations being a huge Lena Dunham fan. The film centres around an experimental film maker and her work with an audio designer. If you have a great pair of headphones or a high end sound system the film wont disappoint your ears either, with a great original score. Rosemarie Dewitt is fantastic as always however my stand- out performance comes from fresh face India Ennenga who for me was the performance highlight. The film wraps up quickly and doesn't waste much time either, its a quick tale told sharply and its brilliant. It baffles me why this has such low scores, possibly they were expecting something more light-hearted penned by Dunham?

I found this film to be initially intriguing but ultimately disappointing. And while the cast is attractive, and the direction is passable, it's the story that falls short. "Who cares?" is the reaction I would expect many people to have upon completing this (thankfully) short, arthouse type movie.

As a man, I was put off by the depiction of my gender here... virtually every man, from cheating spouse to pedophile teacher to lecherous patient to moronic ex-husband to shag-expecting seat-mate on a flight... is presented as either a "dog" or a jerk, and this is just wholly unrealistic. Can't a "strong woman" movie exist without casting every male as a hormone-driven slob, an idiot, or an evil czar to be toppled?

The story goes nowhere, driven there by semi-interesting people doing nothing of note. In the end, it's basically a character study about people that are hard to relate to, and becomes essentially a waste of talent and energy. Not worth your time.

Nobody Walks (2012)

** (out of 4)

A New York film student named Martine (Olivia Thirlby) comes out West to finish her movie on insects and ends up living with a happy family. The father (John Krasinski) agrees to help Martine finish the film but soon he ends up falling for her, which sets off different emotions for his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt). NOBODY WALKS has some pretty good stuff in it but in the end it's just another independent movie that thinks it has a lot more to say than it actually does. If I had to pick one word for this film it would be "mildly." I say that because everything here could have mildly put in front of it. The story is mildly entertaining. The idea that everyone wants what they can't have is mildly interesting. The way the film gets its point across is mildly interesting. Everything in this movie manages to be mildly something but unfortunately it's just not clever enough or showing us anything that we haven't already seen and this is what keeps it from being much better. We've seen the perfect household fall apart with the site of a beautiful woman using her sexuality so that's not giving us anything new here. The way that it all happens is, you guessed it, mildly interesting because as a film buff I found it entertaining that the husband was helping the girl edit a film. The sex scene happens in a sound proof room. I'm not exactly sure if this student's film was supposed to mean something to the viewer but I took nothing away from it. The best thing going for the film are its performances with Thirlby once again really impressing me. She's certainly a very charming actress and the way she pushed the sexuality here was quite memorable and one hopes to see more of her going forward. Both Krasinski, DeWitt and Dylan McDermott are good in their parts as is India Ennenga who plays the daughter. NOBODY WALKS isn't going to appeal to too many people but I think fans of the indie scene might want to check it out even if it doesn't reach the levels one would have hoped for.

The first clue is the runtime of 1 hour and 22 minutes. In a time when Hollywood stretches the limits of audiences' attention spans to their fullest 3 hour seated capacity, "nobody walks" writes its epitaph with (and within) its short start to finish as it starts quickly and runs out of gas just as so. While a specific length is not a necessity, this film is ambitious in its grand plans and yet negligent on its delivery. "Nobody walks"'s quest is to tackle one of modern human life's most specific challenges: monogamy; and more importantly: the desire to stray from it; and that desire in general. Its most profound assertion is that no relationship is sacred, as not even the boundaries of our most official are safe from the powers of lust. It goes even further into suggesting that all relationships are laced with and perhaps built upon this sexual wanting. The movie is passionate about its agenda. So much so; that it beleaguers each of its eight characters with this primal condition. Unfortunately, though all the characters suffer, no one is cured, no one is diagnosed, no one can even admit they have a problem, until the film is over. Ironically, much like a failing marriage, the film cannot deal with the conflict that it has created, so it just doesn't. In the very few scenes with perfunctory attempts, it falls short; as the acting and screen writing remain under equipped to deal with the subject that "nobody walks" promises to celebrate. Functionally anorectic, the film suffers classically from a case of biting off more than it can chew, as the story neither swallows its attempt, nor takes any other bites at all. The characters take no time to introduce themselves before beginning their preconceived flaws, almost as if it wasn't supposed to happen to them at all. And just as soon as they are done, with no question or contrition, they all quit and the credits roll. Perhaps, the film, in its greatest irresponsibility, fails most disappointingly as it never explains why, some characters, though all innately feral in carnality, find vaccination in the last moments of temptation and are spared of their supposed dubious inevitability, and yet others are curiously stricken and never recover. Time management seems to be the success and failure of many films and "nobody walks", though quick in its sprint, might have been better served with a slow jog, or even a more calculated stroll.