Touches You

One of my all time favorites.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It amazes me sometimes, when I miss the comedy in movies labeled as comedies. On occasion, it has to do with time. Take NETWORK (1976), for example. According to the listing, it was supposed to be a dark comedy. What it turned into was an appropriation of the future, a future that we are now stuck in, so all of the humor is lost.It's been a long time since I watched this film, and so it's possible I won't be able to grasp it's higher functions (assuming it has any). The main plot seems to be about three women and three men who are so bored with existence that they can't seem to derive happiness out of anything, and spend most of their time attempting to derive happiness out of the sexual pleasures of other people. Jerry (Ben Stiller) is with Terri (Catherine Keener). Jerry decides he'd like a fling with Mary (Amy Brenneman), who's with Barry (Aaron Eckhart. A chubby, pre-DARK KNIGHT Aaron Eckhart. Not that there was anything wrong with his performance. I just wonder why he was so chubby then, as opposed to now). Terri wants a fling with Cheri (Nastassja Kinski). Cary (Jason Patric) doesn't seem to want anything with anybody, including the human race itself, while Barry is apparently getting more out of his right hand than he is any sexual partner.It's funny that when you write it out like this, you can see why this would make a funny movie. So I have to wonder why it didn't make me laugh.Did I miss something? Sex is the primary motivator here, there's no mention of love anywhere, from anybody. There's a plot device of the question of who the men have had the best sex with, Barry's answer being his hand and Cary's answer being downright terrifying (his male rape victim in high school, for the record. I don't know why that's funny, or even if it's SUPPOSED to be funny). I can't remember Jerry's answer. Must not have been that interesting. Maybe he said something dumb, like "Terri, of course!" I don't know. I don't think it matters.There is a question that comes up, for people like this, that's never answered in the film: How did these people meet? WHY did they meet, and then WHY did they end up in bed together, pretending to have relationships where there is no evidence of any kind that they are even CAPABLE of them? But, I digress.The resolving plot device on the other side of this mess of bed-jumping, Cary's theatrical flipping out about unsatisfying women and berating Terri, and jokes about how having sex with a woman is better than having sex with Ben Stiller (a decent argument, maybe) leaves all of them more miserable when they came in (even Barry, though I honestly can't figure out WHY. He started this tale loving his hand, and ends it that way. I guess maybe he needs more in life? Who would've guessed??). Despite their need to change partners, Jerry begs to go back to Terri, Cheri wants Terri to actually talk to her (something Terri refuses to do, because I guess sex is all she's looking for?) Barry talks to a phone for sex and ends up disappointed for some reason, and Mary and Cary end this visage of shallowness with the question that's dominated the dissolution of these strange intermingle-ings. "Maybe it's me," they all ask, except Cary, who appears at the very end to play with Amy Brenneman's breasts.Strangely enough it's Barry who wins for being the only character I seemed to care about. I remember him as being a nice enough guy, and the part of him loving his own hand is more of a practical answer to a question answered in a boy's locker room rather than a joke. I guess his loneliness at the end is supposed to mean something, like he's supposed to be with somebody, but he's the only character that never really goes bed-hopping (besides the insane Cary), so I fail to understand the point of what I see.I really think that Cary, a doctor who despises people, threatens people, demeans and berates people, is supposed to be the main article of comedy here, because his acting is by far the most theatrical. The only trouble is, he's only amusing in that way a friend of yours jokes about taking a rifle to the top of a clock tower—it's only funny as long as he doesn't MEAN IT.Cary means it. And illustrates it. He is not well with the world.I don't get this movie. It's hard for me to care for anybody, impossible for me to laugh at anything, and when it's all said and done, a bunch of shallow people ponder their existence by wondering if their daily choices of doing everything simply out of interest for themselves could be the cause of their misery. And since that sums up the film, let me spare you the trouble of watching it by answering their question for them: YES, IT IS.

There are just so many films just like this, that I can't really say much for Your Friends & Neighbors, mainly because it offers very little to make in memorable or distinguishable in any way. A group of people in their 30's spend the film talking about their unsatisfying relationships and sex lives and cheating on each other with each other; it has all the markings of a 90's theater play, and everything it takes to be an indie darling, including a cast of some of the more popular indie-film stars of the time (this at a time when Ben Stiller was still known more for Reality Bites than for comedies like Zoolander). The acting is indeed good - Jason Patric and Catherine Keener especially, and the film does have a few good scenes, wittily written and well delivered. But in the end, the characters are all completely unlikable and forgettable - they're all characterized solely by their insecurities, shallowness, selfishness, delusions and sexual quirks, and there's nothing there to make the viewer care at all about any of them or about anything that happens to them - and not much happens, at that. The film is the very definition of mediocrity and forgettability.

If you're a person (especially between 25 and 35), without emotional depth or without spiritual (not necessarily religious) inklings of something beyond yourself, you're morally adrift on a raft of tortuous narcissism. That's what this movie says. Not having emotional depth doesn't mean you don't feel things deeply; it means here you can't empathize with others. In fact the movie shows graphically that without the qualities and sensitivities we think make us most vulnerable, all we can be is mentally wounded, emotionally hurt, damaging to others. A more realistic, sensible portrait of narcissism and its discontents I've never seen. Everyone in this film is so focused on his or her self, nothing that could help can enter. Here is a world without anything transcendent, without even community through which to escape the prison of self absorption. Here is a take on contemporary America.

Neil LaBute continues his examination of contemporary mores and follies among American couples, and he's helped by a cast of fine young actors on their way up. But he seems obsessed with sleaze -- there are multiple anal-intercourse sequences in the first half-hour alone -- and his message becomes monotonous. He does write good dialog, delivered with spontaneous-sounding readings by this bunch; Jason Patric has a truly remarkable monologue about halfway through. What defeats LaBute, as with so many modern filmmakers, is his relentless battering-ram sensibility. His negativism is so reflexive that finally there's not only no one to root for, there's no suspense. Of course these stories will all end unhappily, because he doesn't believe anything can end happily. That's as predictable as the optimism of prewar movie makers was. Memo to today's screenwriters: You really want to surprise us? Say something positive.