Film review: 'You Can Thank Me'
The Cooperbergs of Montreal -- an irreverent Jewish clan facing a major crisis -- are an encyclopedia of familial woes led by a hideously critical and intolerant matron played with gusto by Ellen Burstyn.
Overacting and endless, stage-bound group angst is the norm in acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan's scabrous comedy that closed the 10th Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival on Sunday to decidedly mixed reception. The English-language production also features Amanda Plummer, Mary McDonnell and Genevieve Bujold, but its chances for significant theatrical distribution are slim.
Written by Montreal-born playwright Oren Safdie, "You Can Thank Me Later" is claustrophobically set in a hospital room where the family waits for the outcome of a man undergoing serious surgery. Dotan tries to break up the goings-on with black-and-white cutaways to the various siblings and their families talking frankly with presumably several therapists. There's also lots of frantic, spontaneous sex in bathrooms and cars.
The humor runs the gambit from hoary characterizations -- the artist whose paintings are incomprehensible, the Don Juan who scores easily but also gets caught regularly, the controlling mother who plays favorites -- to ineffective running gags like the broken hospital TV set that only shows documentaries about World War II and the Holocaust.
Ultimately turning serious but never fully engaging as an ensemble hate-in to begin with, "You Can Thank Me Later" is no "Happiness" or "Celebration". Wacky-tacky farce one minute and static bitchfest the next, there's no reward for watching the talented cast struggle with dubious material that is so indifferently mounted. The film could benefit from a new score and the cutting of at least 10 minutes.
Plummer as the lone daughter in the family plays yet another dizzy scaredy-cat, while McDonnell as the separated wife and secret lover of second son Eli (Ted Levine) has no particularly memorable moments. Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") stands out because his relatively calm and rational character is the most appealing, while Mark Blum struggles to get laughs as the successful, oversexed eldest son.
Burstyn sinks her chops into the role of blitzing mother Cooperberg, but her stagey performance combined with Amnon Solomon's blase cinematography does not make for an endearingly wicked character. She's too much in our faces and in the faces of the messed-up brood of wimps she terrorizes.
Macha Grenon shows some spunk as the righteously vicious wife of Blum's smug opportunist, while Bujold's Mystery Woman is a sketchy enigma who figures in the bizarre wrap-up -- which includes vital information about Plummer's character that's inexplicably withheld, completing one's befuddlement and frustration with this misconceived project.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Danehip Entertainment
A Dotan-Anbar/Cinequest Films production
Director: Shimon Dotan
Producers: Shimon Dotan, Netaya Anbar
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Director of photography: Amnon Salomon
Production designer: Michael Devine
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Costume designer: Renee April
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Eli: Ted Levine
Edward: Mark Blum
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Overacting and endless, stage-bound group angst is the norm in acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan's scabrous comedy that closed the 10th Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival on Sunday to decidedly mixed reception. The English-language production also features Amanda Plummer, Mary McDonnell and Genevieve Bujold, but its chances for significant theatrical distribution are slim.
Written by Montreal-born playwright Oren Safdie, "You Can Thank Me Later" is claustrophobically set in a hospital room where the family waits for the outcome of a man undergoing serious surgery. Dotan tries to break up the goings-on with black-and-white cutaways to the various siblings and their families talking frankly with presumably several therapists. There's also lots of frantic, spontaneous sex in bathrooms and cars.
The humor runs the gambit from hoary characterizations -- the artist whose paintings are incomprehensible, the Don Juan who scores easily but also gets caught regularly, the controlling mother who plays favorites -- to ineffective running gags like the broken hospital TV set that only shows documentaries about World War II and the Holocaust.
Ultimately turning serious but never fully engaging as an ensemble hate-in to begin with, "You Can Thank Me Later" is no "Happiness" or "Celebration". Wacky-tacky farce one minute and static bitchfest the next, there's no reward for watching the talented cast struggle with dubious material that is so indifferently mounted. The film could benefit from a new score and the cutting of at least 10 minutes.
Plummer as the lone daughter in the family plays yet another dizzy scaredy-cat, while McDonnell as the separated wife and secret lover of second son Eli (Ted Levine) has no particularly memorable moments. Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") stands out because his relatively calm and rational character is the most appealing, while Mark Blum struggles to get laughs as the successful, oversexed eldest son.
Burstyn sinks her chops into the role of blitzing mother Cooperberg, but her stagey performance combined with Amnon Solomon's blase cinematography does not make for an endearingly wicked character. She's too much in our faces and in the faces of the messed-up brood of wimps she terrorizes.
Macha Grenon shows some spunk as the righteously vicious wife of Blum's smug opportunist, while Bujold's Mystery Woman is a sketchy enigma who figures in the bizarre wrap-up -- which includes vital information about Plummer's character that's inexplicably withheld, completing one's befuddlement and frustration with this misconceived project.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Danehip Entertainment
A Dotan-Anbar/Cinequest Films production
Director: Shimon Dotan
Producers: Shimon Dotan, Netaya Anbar
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Director of photography: Amnon Salomon
Production designer: Michael Devine
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Costume designer: Renee April
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Eli: Ted Levine
Edward: Mark Blum
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/21/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'You Can Thank Me Later'
A stagey talkathon involving a dysfunctional Jewish family squabbling while their patriarch undergoes a life-threatening operation, Shimon Dotan's Canadian feature will no doubt suffer comparisons to Woody Allen and Neil Simon.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to its forebears, lacking the big laughs to succeed as comedy and sufficient emotion to work as drama. The film, boasting an impressive cast, was given its world premiere at last year's Montreal World Film Festival, where it played in competition.
The screenwriter, Oren Safdie, is a widely produced playwright, and this effort has the feel of a stage play adapted to the screen. Much of the action takes place in a hospital room, where the Cooperberg family is waiting to hear the results of their father's surgery. Shirley Cooperberg (Ellen Burstyn) is the officious and demanding mother, and her children include Susan (Amanda Plummer), a bohemian abstract artist confused about to her role in life; Eli (Ted Levine), a failed writer who has taken over the family business; and Edward (Mark Blum), a theatrical producer whose womanizing is about to cost him his marriage. Also present in the room, acting as a mostly silent witness, is the hospital's television repairman (Roch Lafortune).
As the family nervously waits, various age-old tensions rise to the surface as Shirley is unable to hide her disappointment over the way her children turned out and they, in turn, rail over the courses their lives have taken. Framed by a series of scenes depicting various therapy sessions undertaken by the principals, the plot also includes flashbacks in which we are introduced to other characters, including Eli's ex-wife (Mary McDonnell) and his teenage son (Jacob Tierney).
In between the bitter arguments and anguished monologues, the characters also engage in various shenanigans. Edward relentlessly pursues an enigmatic and sexy nurse (Genevieve Brouillette); Susan has sexual encounters with a female gallery owner and the TV repairman; and a mysterious nun (Genevieve Bujold) pops up periodically.
The film has its moments, both comic and otherwise, but too often the dialogue and characterizations have an artificial feel that not even this group of talented performers can bring to life. Veering uneasily between naturalism and absurdism -- a late sequence involving the nun's getting hit by the family's car is particularly loopy -- too often the dialogue revolves around such less-than-burning issues as whether or not the siblings were breast-fed as infants and what really happened to Edward's pet goldfish three decades ago.
A running element throughout the film involves a school bus accident, albeit one with less fateful results than in "The Sweet Hereafter".
The performances are a mixed bag. Burstyn is uncharacteristically heavy-handed as the matriarch, and Plummer does her usual shtick in what must be her thousandth weird role to date. Ted Levine and Mark Blum, on the other hand, are given the opportunity to display a greater range than usual, and are more than up to the task. McDonnell also does fine, sensitive work, and Lafortune displays sharp comic timing in what could have been a throwaway role.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Equinox Entertainment
Director: Shimon Dotan
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Producers: Netaya Anbar, Shimon Dotan
Director of photography: Ammon Salomon
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Music: Takashi Kako
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Eli: Ted Levine
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Edward: Mark Blum
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to its forebears, lacking the big laughs to succeed as comedy and sufficient emotion to work as drama. The film, boasting an impressive cast, was given its world premiere at last year's Montreal World Film Festival, where it played in competition.
The screenwriter, Oren Safdie, is a widely produced playwright, and this effort has the feel of a stage play adapted to the screen. Much of the action takes place in a hospital room, where the Cooperberg family is waiting to hear the results of their father's surgery. Shirley Cooperberg (Ellen Burstyn) is the officious and demanding mother, and her children include Susan (Amanda Plummer), a bohemian abstract artist confused about to her role in life; Eli (Ted Levine), a failed writer who has taken over the family business; and Edward (Mark Blum), a theatrical producer whose womanizing is about to cost him his marriage. Also present in the room, acting as a mostly silent witness, is the hospital's television repairman (Roch Lafortune).
As the family nervously waits, various age-old tensions rise to the surface as Shirley is unable to hide her disappointment over the way her children turned out and they, in turn, rail over the courses their lives have taken. Framed by a series of scenes depicting various therapy sessions undertaken by the principals, the plot also includes flashbacks in which we are introduced to other characters, including Eli's ex-wife (Mary McDonnell) and his teenage son (Jacob Tierney).
In between the bitter arguments and anguished monologues, the characters also engage in various shenanigans. Edward relentlessly pursues an enigmatic and sexy nurse (Genevieve Brouillette); Susan has sexual encounters with a female gallery owner and the TV repairman; and a mysterious nun (Genevieve Bujold) pops up periodically.
The film has its moments, both comic and otherwise, but too often the dialogue and characterizations have an artificial feel that not even this group of talented performers can bring to life. Veering uneasily between naturalism and absurdism -- a late sequence involving the nun's getting hit by the family's car is particularly loopy -- too often the dialogue revolves around such less-than-burning issues as whether or not the siblings were breast-fed as infants and what really happened to Edward's pet goldfish three decades ago.
A running element throughout the film involves a school bus accident, albeit one with less fateful results than in "The Sweet Hereafter".
The performances are a mixed bag. Burstyn is uncharacteristically heavy-handed as the matriarch, and Plummer does her usual shtick in what must be her thousandth weird role to date. Ted Levine and Mark Blum, on the other hand, are given the opportunity to display a greater range than usual, and are more than up to the task. McDonnell also does fine, sensitive work, and Lafortune displays sharp comic timing in what could have been a throwaway role.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Equinox Entertainment
Director: Shimon Dotan
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Producers: Netaya Anbar, Shimon Dotan
Director of photography: Ammon Salomon
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Music: Takashi Kako
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Eli: Ted Levine
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Edward: Mark Blum
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/11/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.