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Simply Perfect

best movie i've ever seen.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

What would Hal Hartley's movies be without the eccentric characters? Here is the ex-baseball player hiding in a boat quoting Proudhon to a religiously following Romanian epilectic girl less than half his age that definitely has her own way of dancing to Sonic Youth. Referencing here and there, many lost on me I guess, but the way everything is downplayed makes it so funny at times.Hal Hartly is so good in casting. I think I liked every actor and actress he has chosen. Here, Elina Lövensohn shines, Karen Sillas is so natural and Robert John Burke is highly dramatic, like he was as the monster in 'No Such Thing'. The rest is seriously deadpan, which is a good thing.

This is a beautifully made film that has dialogue that literally sparkles and puts 90% of Hollywood scripts to shame though that is admittedly not too difficult. I adore Hartley's use of language and the way he lets the actors perform in front of his camera. The post-drinking scene where they dance to Sonic Youth's Kool Thing is inspired cinema, also the scene where Donovan lists his decent bands 'the old Who'. The best scene is at the end though. I find it incredibly moving each time that this man who has constantly denied his feelings and fought his past is drawn to rest his head gently on the breast of the woman he has grown to love. Though surrounded by police the camera focuses only on his face as we hear the words 'Don't move' off-camera. Why would he move when he has finally found where he belongs? Immaculate framing, marvellous pace and a genuinely affecting story all combine to make this my second favourite Hartley film after 'Amateur' which is untouchable as far as I am concerned.

I'm pretty tolerant of films that are off-beat, but really! This is the kind of film that makes one observe that the director might make some pretty good films when he grows up. The first scene gave me the expectation that in a minute or two, a curtain would come down and the audience would clap politely, and the amateur actors would leave the stage and move on to the real movie. But they just moved to other stages, where they kept on reading their lines as if they were dictating to a stenographer. Try to imagine an episode of "Twin Peaks" starring Lindsay Crouse. You got it. After 30 minutes, I switched and watched something else---then when I came back 2 hours later, another Hartley film was airing ("Amateurs")---which actually did capture my interest. Not great, but I stuck it out to the end. Too many forced bits that made me think of the Aykroyd-Hanks "Dragnet".

Hartley has here created a near masterpiece; a wonderful, autumnally atmospheric and deeply human film. The usual quirks are there (the cyclical dialogues, the silences) but it is imbued with a warmth and love that makes the film unmissable. The fragile nature of relationships comes under the directors scrutiny as two brothers spend a couple of days in Long Island. The all night drinking scene complete with a dance routine to Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing" captures that dusk to dawn and too much Jack Daniels feel as well as any film I have ever seen. But, it is the closing scene which clinches it, a heart stoppingly romantic yet equally depressing end which asserts that through the pains of life, through the "trouble and desire" there is always a belief in other people that can keep us going. Life affirming (without being a saccharine "feel good" movie) and truly wonderful