Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The premise is interesting - describing a crisis in a life of a spoiled, shallow, born-rich, almost-middle-aged guy, having a comedic view of it.Also, it looks very nice, too nice, really, essentially unreal, which is nice in comparison to this guy's life, which is also such.But that's basically all there is to it. It's not fun, though that is by design. It has but a few good jokes. There are no really fundamental observations on human nature. Well, except that someone who's been spoiled by their 40s needs to have a crisis to _start_ living in the real world - and that their life-long psychiatrist is a part of the problem, not the solution.The cast is actually mostly OK, except that Olivia Wilde being a model is a slight miss - though she's great in other terms. Essentially, they could have just made her an actress or a painter, or something.But the material is just even more shallow than our main character and, by the end, you're basically left with "what was all this for?".

And Whit Stillman. And Wes Anderson. No question here who first time director Peter Glanz looks up to and idolizes! He has even copied the whole idea of setting a film in the 60s....but I assume (from the "making of" featurette on the DVD) that he is far, far too young to have even been a small child in the 60s. This isn't nostalgia or history...it is just homage to directors who are 30 years older than himself.If you are going to go to the expense and trouble of setting a film in a specific historical setting, you'd think you would have a POINT to it...it has some link to history of that era....or it references something in your personal life, or that of a relative. Or it's based on a novel or incident from the past. Otherwise, it feels pointless. The director clearly has no real feeling or nostalgia for the past, except for "mod fashions of the 60s". Or maybe it has something to do with the success of "Mad Men", which has done more to make the 60s have a comeback than anything else I know. But "Mad Men" is making a point about how the history of the 60s, is the underpinnings of so many things we think and do today...part of our evolution as a culture. "The Longest Week" has no point. It is utterly trivial.The story is about a useless trust fund brat (Jason Bateman) who is 40ish and suddenly his absent parents cut him off (for no real reason). He has to crash with his best friend, a successful pop artist (Billy Crudup). He meets a beautiful model (Olivia Wilde, a little long in the tooth for a fashion model of the era -- Twiggy was SIXTEEN) and they have a week-long affair while he is displaced from his lavish lifestyle in his parent's luxe hotel suite.That's IT. He "suffers" (stealing money from his friends) for ONE WEEK. This week is so transformative, he grows up (sort of).I don't know a thing about the director, but it made me wonder if he was this same sort of trust fund brat. In the post 2008 economic climate, it is REALLY hard to work up sympathy for some billionaire's spoiled man-child.No surprise this film was shelved for over 2 years before going direct to video, based I am sure solely on the star names. In that time, bit part player Jenny Slate (she plays a blind date of the hero) rose to prominence in the (much better) indie film "Obvious Child"; as a result, she is given TOP BILLING. But she only has a couple of brief scenes.I enjoy 60s nostalgia as much as anyone (I was actually around then!) but this feels as fake and sterile as a display in department store window.It did occur to me watching this...it is clearly set in about 1966 (from the clothes model Beatrice wears). If Conrad Valmont (Bateman) is 40....today, in 2016, he would be...90. That shook me up a bit. It's worth thinking about. Clearly it never crossed the director's mind (i.e., what happened through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, to these vapid characters).(I would have been interested to see the original B&W short that the director showed at Sundance. Too bad, it is not included on the DVD extras and I can't even find a link to it on Vimeo or anywhere on IMDb.)

Romantic comedy, lightweight but fun. I found it on Netflix streaming movies.Jason Bateman is Conrad Valmont, 40-ish, and has always lived a life of luxury in the family hotel. He fashions himself as an author but when anyone asks about his current book he just says he is "gathering data." As he has been for several years. But he has it made with luxurious living quarters, an allowance, and a chauffeur. But mom and dad decide to split up and neither of them wants to carry the burden of Conrad's expenses. He basically has to leave on short notice, broke and with no place to live.So he does what anyone in his situation would do, he goes to his friend from childhood, Billy Crudup as single guy Dylan Tate, and asks if he can crash there for a while. Dylan doesn't mind but he has one request, rather a demand, that Conrad NOT go after his girlfriend.The girlfriend is Olivia Wilde as Beatrice Fairbanks. In spite of his assurances, Conrad in fact does have an eye for her. But to be fair here, she is probably even more to blame, as she makes overtures to him first, and they begin seeing each other on the sly.So that is basically it, the romantic triangle and the need for Conrad to finally grow up, learn how to make his own way through life. It is mostly entertaining but ultimately forgettable. I mainly enjoyed it for the three main actors, I like all of them.

This isn't such a bad movie as it is a slow movie. Outside of that it's perfectly watchable. At movies finish my first thought was 'this is a flick for the one percent'.This story centers around a 40 year rich playboy who finds himself essentially broke for one week. Does he suffer? No! Does he learn anything about everyday life? No! Bateman as Conrad Valmont just escapes to his well off friends and successfully hides his new status as 'broke' at least for awhile. In the mean time he still lives the privileged life because he has a name associated with wealth and others just cater to him. Plus he is constantly looking inward. In the end nothing really changed him. His only act of altruism is giving a street person a box of cigarettes and replacing cash he stole from a friend. Oh and around all this is a love story!The photography is lush, dialog is wonderful, the acting is fine. But the plot gets very slow about 40 minutes into the movie and you'll wonder where this is going. It goes no where because the one percent are so insulated from the outside world any change in their lifestyle is a brief inconvenience. He ends up right back where he started with a book he wrote that nobody cared for.