A film
review by flawlessfrogs for Or as They Say in Hollywood on July 26, 2011.
Movies are
meant to be entertaining. However, sometimes a film is so bad, it's actually
hard to watch it. Music From Another Room
was one of these films. The film opens with a Thanksgiving dinner twenty-five
years earlier. At the end of the night, the party's hostess, Grace (Brenda Blethyn, Pride & Prejudice) goes into labor. Five-year-old Danny helps
deliver the baby girl. He announces that he will marry the baby and it is
revealed that Danny and his widower father moved to England shortly thereafter.
The film then skips ahead twenty-five years. Danny (Jude Law, Gattaca, Sherlock
Holmes) returns to New York and happens to stumble upon Grace and her now
grown daughter, Anna (Gretchen Mol, Manchester by the Sea)'s home. He falls
in love with Anna (though she does not reciprocate his feelings) and soon
becomes entwined in their dysfunctional family's problems. While this is an
interesting premise, the film's plot then becomes confusing and broken; scenes
are not well-explained and the different character plots jump around.
Not only
was the plot confusing and under-developed but it was also poorly acted. While
Anna is supposed to be beautiful, fun, and confident, she comes off as annoying
and overly conventional. She leaves the audience wondering how Danny could ever
fall for her. The different plot lines, involving Anna's blind sister, dying
mother, and paranoid sister-in-law, do not fit together and sometimes fail to
make sense. The humor is often lost at awkward moments or is just not funny.
The actual comic relief came in the form of an unintentionally hilarious (at
one point, he slaps his forehead and repeatedly says Stupid Jesus) salsa dancer/dishwasher named Jesus, who elopes with
Anna's blind sister, Nina (Jennifer
Tilly, Monster's Inc.).
Overall, Music From Another Room was tedious and oversentimental.
If you are willing to overlook all of the film's issues, you might enjoy it.
[Reviewer’s rating: * ½ out of 4 stars]
Blogger's comment: I have to agree with the film critic. Given the supporting cast, which included Martha Plimpton, Jeremy Piven, Jon Tenney, Jane Adams and Bruce Jarchow, this is yet another example of a writer/director (in this case Charlie Peters) having a good concept, but failing to translate it into a tight shooting script and professional direction. Apparently the film industry agrees. Since 1998 Peters has not directed again, and has only two screenwriting credits: My One and Only (2009) and 5 Flights Up (2014).
Labels: comedy, drama, romance
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