Its a funny thing when you end a relationship (oh quit panicking, I'm NOT getting divorce again)....a lot of how you'll view the relationship after you've had some time to reflect back on it will be determined whether you were the...ahem...."dumper", or the "dumpee". Trust me, I'm on my 3rd marriage....I know this material by heart.
Character actor Jon Favreau wrote & helped produce "Swingers", 1996 film that focuses primarily on one man's attempt to get over a broken romance and the friend (Vince Vaughn) that helps him attempt to do it. There's only one other "name" actress in the film, and truthfully, she doesn't come onscreen until about 3/4 of the way through the film....although her part and performance are vital. I'll get to her in a minute though. Favreau is the main lead in this film, and he's got one of those familar faces that makes you scream "oh, yeah...I know that guy" from some of his other films (he played Sean Astin's best friend in "Rudy"). Here he plays Mike, a struggling comedian in Los Angeles who can't seem to catch a break either personally or professionally. Its his personal life that really has Mike a mess though, as he's still in "recovery" from a "6 year relationship" that ended almost six months before. When I say he's in recovery....its only in the broadest sense of the word.
Mike checks his phone messages on a daily basis, hoping that his ex has called and left a message. Every single day he checks. What he really needs is a wild night on the town...say, maybe in Las Vegas. That's what his best friend Trent suggests and they proceed to make the drive from L.A. to Vegas. Trent isn't just a best friend.
He's a force of nature in this film, and I have to tell you--Vaughn has star written all over him here. Its really a starmaking performance, and its easy to see why he began to get bigger roles afterwards.
Favreau's character is really pathetic here. There's a tremendous sad and hilarious scene midway through the film where he calls back a girl who's given him her phone number in a bar. The emotional moodswing that he goes through over the course of about 45 seconds is amazing to watch....a man so conflicted, and yet so seemingly safe in that conflict that he doesn't know what to do anymore. There's a point in the film (probably right after that scene) where you wonder how this guy is ever going to get out of the rut that he's in...and whether the film will ever pay off his emergence from it. Well, he does, and the scene where he does is such a good payoff that it makes the film worth sitting through. A friend of mine has a motto when it comes to relationships---"never go backwards". The great thing is....this film never does.
Quite a good little film. ****
Later,
Jeff
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment