Good acting, Good directing, or Real Life?
Melissa has been indulging me a little, picking some movies starring one of my Top5: Zooey Deschanel
I kept telling Melissa while we were watching BONES that the actress who plays Dr. Brennan has a just-as-cute sister named Zooey. From her uber-cute role as Trillian in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I was pleasantly surprised to find her as the female lead in YES MAN, which m_cubicle and elvishtard gave us for Christmas. So the next step was for Mel to put (500) Days of Summer at the top of our NetFlix queue as a gift to me, to continue our little marathon. It looked like a cute movie from the ads, and she looked so damned adorable, as usual.
Then we watched the movie.
It says right up front that "This is NOT a love story", and it sure as hell was NOT. It's a story about how a great relationship is destroyed because the girl just refuses to commit on any level. A guy falls for her and although they become close and intimate, she won't even call him her boyfriend. (They are together for years) She's so into "playing the field" and "enjoying the moment" that she gets mad at the guy for wanting some type of validation of his feelings, some promise that she won't just up and disappear from his life when the wind changes direction. It's possibly the most mind-numbingly frustrating emotional film I've ever seen. And the ending just...
"You won't be needing THIS anymore..."
Melissa and I hated her character. and I have to wonder... after the slew of roles for Zooey making her out to be this sweet, nice girl, we have her here as a slightly mad/unsympathetic girl, and her nailing the "one brick out of place brings the whole castle down" personality. I'm not one for wanting to know actor's personal lives, but when a role is so convincingly played, one has to wonder if her portrayal here was a product of good writing or directing, or if she is simply like that in real life. (See Nathan Fillion in CASTLE)
I don't know if I'll ever see her the same after this.
I kept telling Melissa while we were watching BONES that the actress who plays Dr. Brennan has a just-as-cute sister named Zooey. From her uber-cute role as Trillian in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I was pleasantly surprised to find her as the female lead in YES MAN, which m_cubicle and elvishtard gave us for Christmas. So the next step was for Mel to put (500) Days of Summer at the top of our NetFlix queue as a gift to me, to continue our little marathon. It looked like a cute movie from the ads, and she looked so damned adorable, as usual.
Then we watched the movie.
It says right up front that "This is NOT a love story", and it sure as hell was NOT. It's a story about how a great relationship is destroyed because the girl just refuses to commit on any level. A guy falls for her and although they become close and intimate, she won't even call him her boyfriend. (They are together for years) She's so into "playing the field" and "enjoying the moment" that she gets mad at the guy for wanting some type of validation of his feelings, some promise that she won't just up and disappear from his life when the wind changes direction. It's possibly the most mind-numbingly frustrating emotional film I've ever seen. And the ending just...
"You won't be needing THIS anymore..."
Melissa and I hated her character. and I have to wonder... after the slew of roles for Zooey making her out to be this sweet, nice girl, we have her here as a slightly mad/unsympathetic girl, and her nailing the "one brick out of place brings the whole castle down" personality. I'm not one for wanting to know actor's personal lives, but when a role is so convincingly played, one has to wonder if her portrayal here was a product of good writing or directing, or if she is simply like that in real life. (See Nathan Fillion in CASTLE)
I don't know if I'll ever see her the same after this.