Not for everyone. What I liked about it was that it wasn't typical. I liked the warm colours and the narrow Toronto character homes. I liked the music. I liked, nay loved, the Scrambler ride on Centre Island and that entire scene.
Many reviewers rave about Michelle Williams's beauty. I thought she looked kind of messy and oily in this movie, but that could have been by plan. I also found, while her acting was good, her character didn't seem to have a lot to fall in love with, besides being really cute.
The movie showed the agony of longing, really well...all those charged moments when people are falling for one another and it's "forbidden"---in this case because Margot is Married to Lou and doesn't want to hurt him.
Some far fetched elements, like, If Daniel, the handsome newcomer on Margot's scene, is a rickshaw driver, not only how does he afford a decent spacious home across the street from Margot and Lou, but what does he do in the nasty Toronto winter months? We don't find out that much about him except that he's also an artist but too shy to try to exhibit his work (which seems odd as he's not a shy guy, pursuing Margot.) Similarly we find out that Margot, a travel writer, wants to be a real writer, presumably of fiction. But she doesn't share any profound or interesting thoughts, so perhaps she's better on the page than in person. And Lou, as played decently by Seth Rogen, is a cookbook author of entirely chicken recipes. And yet, only at the end of the movie do we see his new cookbook "Tastes Like Chicken" in a store window, indicating that this is his first book. They'd been married around five years, how have they been able to live comfortably all that time if he's only written the one book? And how does he develop his recipes in a small dimly lit kitchen?
Okay, Okay it's a movie, not everything is has to be completely believable but it's nice when it is. The emotions are believable, Michelle Williams' longing for Daniel seems real. The scene where Daniel ends up giving Lou and Margot a free ride in his rickshaw is wonderfully loaded.
I wondered about the sex scene towards the end, with the threesomes (other women in bed with Daniel and Margot) were they supposed to be real, or some kind of dream-like montage symbolic of something? I assume the former, as nothing else in the movie was supposed to be surreal like that. In which case, I have to wonder, why is Margot staying with Daniel if he's not that into her, if he needs more women in his bed? And since everything seems to make Margot cry, it seems she will never be happy and satisfied anyway. I certainly would get sick of her if I were either of the two guys hooked up with her in this movie. Still I came away from it feeling refreshed somehow, like I'd had a sorbet to cleanse me of the usual Hollywood stuff.
Sarah Silverman as Lou's sister is really wonderful. Funny and real.
Many reviewers rave about Michelle Williams's beauty. I thought she looked kind of messy and oily in this movie, but that could have been by plan. I also found, while her acting was good, her character didn't seem to have a lot to fall in love with, besides being really cute.
The movie showed the agony of longing, really well...all those charged moments when people are falling for one another and it's "forbidden"---in this case because Margot is Married to Lou and doesn't want to hurt him.
Some far fetched elements, like, If Daniel, the handsome newcomer on Margot's scene, is a rickshaw driver, not only how does he afford a decent spacious home across the street from Margot and Lou, but what does he do in the nasty Toronto winter months? We don't find out that much about him except that he's also an artist but too shy to try to exhibit his work (which seems odd as he's not a shy guy, pursuing Margot.) Similarly we find out that Margot, a travel writer, wants to be a real writer, presumably of fiction. But she doesn't share any profound or interesting thoughts, so perhaps she's better on the page than in person. And Lou, as played decently by Seth Rogen, is a cookbook author of entirely chicken recipes. And yet, only at the end of the movie do we see his new cookbook "Tastes Like Chicken" in a store window, indicating that this is his first book. They'd been married around five years, how have they been able to live comfortably all that time if he's only written the one book? And how does he develop his recipes in a small dimly lit kitchen?
Okay, Okay it's a movie, not everything is has to be completely believable but it's nice when it is. The emotions are believable, Michelle Williams' longing for Daniel seems real. The scene where Daniel ends up giving Lou and Margot a free ride in his rickshaw is wonderfully loaded.
I wondered about the sex scene towards the end, with the threesomes (other women in bed with Daniel and Margot) were they supposed to be real, or some kind of dream-like montage symbolic of something? I assume the former, as nothing else in the movie was supposed to be surreal like that. In which case, I have to wonder, why is Margot staying with Daniel if he's not that into her, if he needs more women in his bed? And since everything seems to make Margot cry, it seems she will never be happy and satisfied anyway. I certainly would get sick of her if I were either of the two guys hooked up with her in this movie. Still I came away from it feeling refreshed somehow, like I'd had a sorbet to cleanse me of the usual Hollywood stuff.
Sarah Silverman as Lou's sister is really wonderful. Funny and real.