Nights and Weekends

Some time ago I gave up on Swanberg. He can do a 20 minutes story well. When it comes to 90 minutes, it's the same 20 minutes and a lot of air.

Gerwig is nice. She acts well. But there is not much of a story she can work on. In fact, there is no story, only a chronological succession of snapshots that start nowhere and end up somewhere.

Though Swanberg's previous film "LOL", was not the most visually stunning, it was creative, and I found it quite interesting simply because it had something to say about how we relate to one another in this day and age. This film seems to want to say something as well, but the immature, whiny, uninteresting way the characters say it, has started to become a staple of the Mumblecore movement (to see the most blatant example of this, see "The Puffy Chair"...actually, don't).

The majority of these films been festival darlings and been fairly well-received by critics. This is mostly due to the fact that many of the films have been able to strip away the traditional Hollywood artifice from their characters and allow them to exhibit some honest behavior, no matter how awkward. However, you get the sense that these middle-class, white, 20-somethings need something to fill their time besides thoughts of their own neuroses and navel-gazing.

The allure of these films for many viewers is that the people on screen are "just like me", and the situations are "just like what happened to me yesterday". This could be interesting if only there were actually something at stake.

The NY Times review summed it up better than I can, when it stated, "The problem with the movie is that James and Mattie exhibit little but shallow, infantile neurosis, with next to no hint of a complex — or even legible — inner life."

Mattie (Greta Gerwig) and James (Joe Swanberg) are a struggling loving couple in Chicago. They break up and a year later, he calls her out of the blue. He has attained some success and she lives in New York. He is the subject of a photo shoot and the photographer even brings her into the picture. They try to reignite their relationship.

This is a mumblecore indie. It's not that much written. The dialog is almost improvisational in its nature. The shooting style is strictly amateur indie. Swanberg plays it stiff initially as the foundational piece of the relationship. Gerwig brings an energy and charisma. Apparently, the film was shoot in two parts just like the on-screen relationship. There is a change in the characters especially Swanberg. He's more confident in the second part. This is a great introduction to two indie careers.

This mumblecore drama is shot in the style of a homemade movie and takes a close (at times too close) look at Mattie, who resides in The City That Never Sleeps, and James, who resides in The Windy City, a fun-loving, hot and heavy young couple and the severe strain they face while trying to hold onto their passionate but unsustainable long-distance relationship. Will they prevail, or is their steamy love affair already kaput? The low-budget filmmaking style does create a welcomed sense of spontaneity that makes the characters and dialogue feel authentic, plus it really allows the two central actors to embody most of the awkwardness and complexities between the two of them, but still it's not very deep or profound, nor does it have a true plot to propel the scenes forward, thus making it feel like a prolonged and gratuitous exercise despite the relatively short running time. **

I will try not to be overly critical here because I have been somewhat harsh on the mumblecore movement and while this movie is not something I enjoyed I did not find it as sloppy as some of the previous mumblecore work.

This film was showing at south by southwest in austin, after it showed some people were really into it while others hated it. I was impartial, having seen the previous mumblecore work I knew what to anticipate. Rambling scenes, mumbling, nudity for the sake of shock and attention, whiney pathetic lead characters.

I hate to tell people what to think, and I can say a few people seemed to find it interesting. I can say what I thought though, their was basically no plot, the whole story revolves around two characters, and if you find whiney pathetic characters annoying then you are in trouble.

I have a theory that after seeing so much garbage that looked the same at SXSW people were merely impressed because they saw a different looking piece of garbage, and they said, well is that still garbage, it looks different. The thing is, garbage comes in all shapes and sizes.