Compulsion

I see why it gets bad reviews as this aims to a very limited audience. If you thought this was going to be a fun and wacky chick flick with traditionally sympathetic characters, you were horribly, horribly wrong.

Everything but the script is damn near perfect, and the script is not terrible either. Not fantastic, but hand in hand with the good acting, fitting soundtrack and beautiful cinematography; it's a very enjoyable film.

IF you're the target audience.

If you're looking for something that dares be different from the rest of the lot, this movie is for you! Also, Joe Mantegna plays a detective in this. If you're a Criminal Minds fan you could watch it just to get a kick out of thinking of it as a crossover between this film and CM.

An enjoyable little film full of the kind of intense and intimate relationships that you normally only find on a stage. Hopefully that will be enough to set the scene as Compulsion is not really a film, its a theater production put on to film.

Compulsion is two stories that unravel and then combine to become one as you really only get the second story after being fully immersed in the fervor and passion of Amy (Heather Graham). Heather Graham appears to have added more a little Nigella Lawson (Youtube her) to her depiction of a voluptuous gastronome desperately seeking acknowledgement and love.

So too does the other leading character Saffron bring a fine set of hang ups and issues played by Carrie Anne Moss.

Both lead actresses set the movie apart from ennui with excellent portrayals of their characters and through their selling of the story. They also looks fantastic (which can't be bad!).

If you take the movie for the play that it is, rather than the blockbuster you might be hoping for, then you should get on fine.

First of all, let me just start out by saying that this movie is slow, unbelievably slow. And the 88 minutes that the movie ran for seemed much, much longer.

The story told in "Compulsion" had its moments, but it was overall weighed down by things taking too long. There were so many scenes that just dragged on for way too long, where the movie would have benefited from a trim and a notch up in pace.

"Compulsion" is about Amy (played by Heather Graham) who is obsessed about gourmet cooking and dreaming about getting her own cooking show on TV. All she cares about is her cooking and her food, desperately seeking approval in her cooking from her boyfriend/husband (?) Fred (played by Kevin Dillon). However, her compulsive obsession drives him away, and instead she starts to cook for her reclusive neighbor Saffron (played by Carrie-Anne Moss).

It should be said that the people in the movie were doing good jobs in acting, however, the characters were really odd. And I personally didn't really find much enjoyment in these characters, because they were all a bit too eccentric and out there. But thumbs up to the actors and actresses, because they did good jobs.

This slow paced thriller might not be suitable for just anyone, and I was tempted to get up and find something else to watch a couple of times throughout the 88 (long) minutes. But I stuck with it to the end, hoping that there might just be a change for the better just around the corner. But that was not to be...

I am rating "Compulsion" a mere 3 out of 10 stars, simply because the actors and actresses held the movie afloat, the rest of the movie - especially the storyline itself - was just downright boring and tedious.

Aren't you just sick of all those cooking shows on TV? I'm not, because I never watch 'em. "Compulsion" parodies these gourmet splurges. If you think overdone parody could be fun, then you might enjoy this movie - if you don't, then maybe you won't. Heather Graham can handle the heat in the kitchen. She works this role hard, a tour de force. In fact, rather too much of the movie depends on her performance. One of the most loving things you can do is feed someone. You're holding the spoon, and you're actually putting the food into the mouth of a baby, or a helpless old person, or someone severely disabled. But people who have tried to get an anorexic to eat know that this can be a heartbreaking exercise. And Amy's reclusive and depressed neighbour (whose careers are slipping away) is anorexic. So the "feeding" begins to look rather sinister. But is Amy living in a dream world? Is this TV cooking show she's planning ever going to happen? And her partner seems to be losing interest in her brilliant culinary achievements. Perhaps he's losing interest in her. He'll need to be taught a lesson. She is heterosexual, right? Viewers will need to have patience. There are flashbacks, so pay attention. You have to accept the conventions of the genre. I liked it.

The story of two disturbed women whose lives end up intertwining. Or to be precise, one obsessive and possibly delusional woman and another who simply has had a hard life. When the psychotic of the two, Amy, develops a fascination with her reclusive neighbour, Saffron, she shows it through trying to push her love of food on to her. What follows is a rather bizarre but intriguing series of events.

A great aspect of this film is that I believe it's open to interpretation. Amy clearly doesn't have the tightest grip on reality, in fact we are often shown glimpses into her head where an imaginary audience is cheering her on. Combine this with the plot and characters going in the strangest of directions and the sceptical comments of a particular other character and the film raises the question of how much of it is in Amy's head and how much of it is simply events going in such a unique way.

Admittedly, this film is probably a bit of an acquired taste(ha, get it). It's labelled a thriller, which is partly true but the vast majority of it is a character study. If you like analysing the mindsets of flawed characters, this film is for you. Worth re-watching if you want to look at things from a different angle.