Saturday 29 January 2011

For the first time in my life, I am truly in love.

Barney's Version (2010)
Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot. And Paul Giamatti is awesome.

I often have a problem with voice-overs, they tend to just repeat information seen on screen and talk down to an audience.
Be careful what you wish for. I like the fact that Barney's Version is free of narration but the movie is from the perspective of Paul Giamatti and never quite gets into what drives him and by focussing on how miserable a guy he could be never satisfactorily offers up why women would keep being drawn to the mardy schmuck.
However it is a pleasing film, full of great performances (Hoffman hasn't been this good in ages) and skilfully, crisply directed.
The central mystery is a rather lame old urban legend, getting another airing but the film is clearly not about that, the fact the main character is accused of murder a mere after thought, but important to giving the story a backbone, more to engage with.

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