Movie Review: Say Anything
It is rare that you find a movie, in any genre, that is as real as Say Anything. I've never really seen a movie like this before, and it's not just because it has a unique plot. Lots of movies have unique plots. Yet this movie also has characters. Romantic comedies, and romantic movies in general, generally only have two characters in the movie with actual character (that being the two leads), and if any of the supporting characters have any character at all, it is most often eccentricities that paint the lead in a better light. Of course, there may also be the overbearing parents/parental figure.
While Say Anything has all these characters - the overbearing father (is there any other kind?), the concerned friends, the scarred-by-love family members, they are all real. They have real lives, real backstories, and real concerns. We would all expect to see one of the two leads crying in the bathtub at some point during the film. We would not expect to see one of their fathers doing so. Not only does that very thing happen in Say Anything, but it's revealed during her first scene that one of the supporting characters has love problems of her own - and with consequences that are very real, and go beyond simply encouraging the male lead to do better for us with the female lead.
These are the kinds of thing that give Say Anything a real weight and reality that makes us wonder if we're really watching a movie, or just being shown a documentary of actual people. The ending is almost as you'd expect, but because of its honesty, if it had ended differently, I don't think it would have been unexpected. I found myself rooting less and less for the happy ending over the touching emotional one, and just watching more and more to see what would happen. I never realized during the hour and fourty minutes of it, as I often do, that I was watching a film. And I think that is the best any work of art can hope for.
Rating: 10/10
While Say Anything has all these characters - the overbearing father (is there any other kind?), the concerned friends, the scarred-by-love family members, they are all real. They have real lives, real backstories, and real concerns. We would all expect to see one of the two leads crying in the bathtub at some point during the film. We would not expect to see one of their fathers doing so. Not only does that very thing happen in Say Anything, but it's revealed during her first scene that one of the supporting characters has love problems of her own - and with consequences that are very real, and go beyond simply encouraging the male lead to do better for us with the female lead.
These are the kinds of thing that give Say Anything a real weight and reality that makes us wonder if we're really watching a movie, or just being shown a documentary of actual people. The ending is almost as you'd expect, but because of its honesty, if it had ended differently, I don't think it would have been unexpected. I found myself rooting less and less for the happy ending over the touching emotional one, and just watching more and more to see what would happen. I never realized during the hour and fourty minutes of it, as I often do, that I was watching a film. And I think that is the best any work of art can hope for.
Rating: 10/10
posted by Mike at 11:29 AM
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