oofuss

The Glass Room (novel) is a fantastic story about a house. the people whose lives are connected to it, their relationships, and the transformations of the country it is in.

The Glass Room (Film) is a mess.

Everything that was great about the book is missing from the film. The characters are mere cardboard cut outs of those that grow and develop so wonderfully in the novel. No time is spent establishing any of them, nor their relationships.

The star of the novel, the house, is never shown in its glory in the film, only a few overly repeated angles that never let the house truly shine. And the many significant historical milestones are flipped from one to the other as if mere inconveniences.

Those who have not read the book must spend the first 30 minutes of the film in complete and utter confusion, barely having a clue who each person on screen is and what they mean to each other.

As such they will be frustrated. Likewise those who enjoyed the book, seeing its essence removed and only a watery reflection of it remaining. Those who watch based on the marketing, especially from the US where it goes by the thoroughly misleading title The Affair, who think they are watching a Lesbian love story will be frustrated for the most part.

A real shame that such an excellent story, cast and location are wasted on this terrible film.

I can't decide if this film was good or horrible, the problem is that which way i sway depends on Miranda July's intentions. If she set out to make a story about two of the most loathsome characters not in a horror movie, whom you want to end up together, solely so that they have to suffer each other for the remainder of their days. with the added extra that you feel compelled to punch the next hipster you come across, then she has done a very good job.

However, I can't shake the feeling that although she was intending for the couple to be unlikable, she did want us to have some level of sympathy for them. Sorry, not feeling a thing. The only person i felt sorry for was the daughter of Marshall, and the cat obviously.

The cat is the star, and Ms July shows her talent with the way she presents it's thoughts and moods. So if she was trying to highlight the human race as a plague upon the Earth, then kudos to you. Otherwise, stop the world, i want to get off.

In my opinion there are two great skills required to be an excellent documentary film maker. The first is being able to make your subjects comfortable enough with you to be themselves and the second is to be able to edit together your multitude of interviews, graphics, animations, and other footage into a story. The first skill is far harder to learn than the second.

In Orgasm Inc. Elizabeth Canner, far exceeds any other film maker I have ever seen in the former, and this more than makes up for the ever so slight failing of the the latter. Her ability to get people who have been trained to deal with the media and the public,who have practised for hours in delivering the company line, to then reveal, on camera, things that you can clearly see they know they shouldn't even tell their own mother, is phenomenal.

At first i thought it was just down to the fact that the original company she was hired to work for trusted her because they saw her as an employee, one of theirs so to speak, but she does it with almost every drug company rep and dodgy doctor she speaks with.

The story begins with one company's attempts to corner the market on a "Cure" for Female Sexual Dysfunction, but quickly moves to the question of if this is a real disease or not, then we see the competition's efforts and focus on one women's journey as a trialist for one of the products and finally the efforts of a campaign group in trying to convince the FDA not to approve a drug for this "condition".

Canner was granted access that will probably never be available again and she has used this privilege exceedingly well, my only complaint is that the sequencing and timing of certain scenes didn't work for me, she could have edited the material a little better to improve the overall flow.

However unlike the ability to get people to reveal things they shouldn't, this is something that should improve in her work with experience.

A film that needs a far wider audience than it will unfortunately ever get, Canner has all of the good qualities of Michael Moore, she champions the underdog battling against the big corporate giant, has a playful sense of humour, and an ability to make linear connections, however, she doesn't share his ego, aggressiveness or rudeness, she let's her subjects speak and lets them tell the story.

Fortunately for us, some may wish they never met her.