Just perfect...

Better Late Then Never

Amateur movie with Big budget

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Until it hit its first land mine (more on this later), I was very willing to do something I rarely do when seeing a movie with story flaws, overlook the small unreal moments. I did this because virtually every character in the movie resembled someone I had known (or knew about) during my tenure of 25 years of living in Manhattan during which I went from being an unmarried man to getting married and having a child. The characters writer/director Kollek created have been described as 'quirky' but when people like this are your friends, lovers, acquaintances.....when they are people who you learn about, intimately and otherwise.....then they are people of great variance in their experiences and are not seen to the life you lead as 'quirky'. I should add that there were people I met/experienced who initially might appear to be odd. But getting to know folks who became good friends, getting to know lovers (and the amazing and wonderful stories told during pillow talk time), I learned that 'quirky' is actually quite 'normal'. The movie handled it's characters and their converging stories very well until the first I.E.D.; when Manhattan was reduced to a small town of 1000 with one taxi in it. That is, when Bruno picks up his fare Emily. Which is then followed by their going to bed together. This "coincidence" wounded my concentration/belief in the story being told and though in a lesser film I would have ended the viewing right then, I stuck around until the second major explosion, Bella's windfall (which some people have erroneously labeled as magic realism) of an almost $9 million inheritance from a character never mentioned or referred to previously. In conclusion, I feel very bad that the film derailed itself as it went along because it had begun as a startlingly honest look at a group of very human, very conflicted people, who, as difficult as they made life for themselves goes, also were visited by something we all have to deal with, life's misunderstandings about the vital center of our emotional being when we engage ourselves with other people.

This film ran through the art house circuit so quickly most people missed it, and that's too bad. Now it's finally beginning to show up on cable, and I hope it gets a larger audience. Amos Kollek's other films are also hard to come by in the U.S. -- I know I'D like to see more of them, after having seen this one, but this seems to have the lightest touch, from what I can tell.Among the many things it has going for it, is the incomparable Anna Thomson (Levine), a character actor I've followed since her days in the rep company of the original Tracy Ullmann Show on Fox television, through her unforgettable role in Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN, to this interesting role of Bela.Magical Realism is a kind of sub-genre I always enjoy, and when it plays against the gritty, wonderful city of New York (my home town), I sit up and take notice. This is the kind of dark underbelly of one of my favorite (also underappreciated) TV shows, Jay Tarses' "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd." If you knew and liked that, and can do with something darker and more sexually explicit, you'll probably like this.Bela triumphs, and so do her strange friends, in this pretty unique film, which is slow paced, as slice-of-life character studies are, so be prepared for that. If you tend to criticize films for being "too slow" or not having enough plot, you might not like this, but if you are happy examining characters and living with great dialogue and situations, hang in there. If you like "Smoke" or "Blue in the Face," you'll probably love this.

A bit slow at times, but solid performances and quirky script makes it work. Lead actress is a bit too old for the role of a 34 year old woman, but carries great screen presence and manages to add depth to an eccentric character. Lasser, as always, is fantastic. The editing is a bit messy, but I found this little movie to be quite entertaining.

Today I'm happy that I'm from Israel. This is directly connected to the fact that the director of this film is from Israel either.It really makes me proud to know that the brain who create this wonderful film,grew up here. It is a comedy about life, and all the regular components of our routine: love, sex, work, children, money, getting older... All characters are looking for love and warmness, in their boring life, and they all get connected in some way... We can find ourself in each characters, even thought it present strangeness, and something bizar.This is why I enjoyed watching the film- you can't tell what happened with the character a minute after you've seen her\him on the screen. You won't get any big ideas from the film, and you won't find a message that will make you think allot after the film ends, but- it has a positive atmosphere, and you'll get out from the cinema with a big smile, and with an optimist opinion about life.