The film opens with Ione Skye's character, Frankie, dressed up in pearls like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. She is on a date, and reeling off a tedious string of reasons why she will never settle for anything less than extraordinary and passionate love--as if she were the first person to ever come up with the idea. Unfortunately Skye does not have Hepburn's acting skills; and despite Frankie's retro-style wardrobe and naive romanticism it is not 1961.
"Dream..." is perhaps better viewed as a follow-up to the John Cusack vehicle "Say Anything," in which Skye played the part of the female love interest; here the girl is the protagonist in love and the male is the love object, a refreshing turn. However, Frankie is in her mid-20's, not in high school, and her ideas of love seem more than a little immature. In fact, her entire character seems that of the sheltered, spoiled rich girl who has an extensive wardrobe, goes to work when she feels like it, talks like someone who went to an expensive prep school or college, and whose me-first, out-of-touch-with-reality mode of thought is typical of someone who has lived a very sheltered life. These don't ring true at all with the details of her life: both her parents dead from a young age, she lives in an efficiency flat above her uncle's coffee shop, where she also works.
Apparently, the writer/director Tiffany (coincidence?) DeBartolo has included many autobiographical details in this, her debut film. The credits thank the "real David Schroeder (you know who you are)", the character name of Frankie's love interest. A further look reveals that a photo of her "Eddie and Candy DeBartolo" is used for the scene where Frankie reminisces about her mom and dad before they died in a car wreck. Is Tiffany the daughter of former San Francisco 49'ers owner (and former mob-affiliated federal witness in the recent corruption trial against Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards) Eddie DeBartolo? If so, that would explain many things: (1) the spoiled rich girl attitudes of the protagonist; (2) the setting of San Francisco and the gratuitous references to the 49'ers; (3) the Frank Sinatra and Italian-American themes in the film; and (4) how a novice writer got to direct her own film starring Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston.
I won't say that this movie is completely unappealing. Were my objections to the film solely based upon the naive, unrealistic expectations and attitudes of the lead characters, it could still be a good film. However, the pretentious script is like Woody Allen without the wit, accessibility, or acting -- and the intellectual overtones seem to be there only to the benefit of the screenwriter's self-esteem (at no point does it challenge the viewer to ponder any of its motifs). Aniston pulls her character off as well as the script and direction will allow, some of the supporting characters are somewhat entertaining, but Skye's overwrought performance is excruciatingly painful.
What really sinks this film is the unbearable weight of quotations that Frankie and David use. Both characters rely on quoting famous people -- from Aristotle to Morrissey -- to express the way they feel. This might be cute used once or twice, Frankie can't seem to go a minute in the film without seeming like she's reading from Bartlett's quotations. This, of course, does nothing at all for character development.
The movie changes from "artistic" black-and-white to color when Frankie meets David, and this is one of the cheesiest, blatant cinematic effects I have ever seen. Fortunately, the director doesn't have any more tricks like this in her bag.
Finally, the love story itself is probably going to invoke the "gag me with a spoon" response to most people who have ever actually been in an amorous relationship. The film suggests, naively, that Real Love happens at first sight and is about absolute passion between two soulmates ideally suited to each other, and any compromise on behalf of either party is a sign of the relationship's inadequacy. Of course the film ends at a convenient moment, and the nature of compromise never has to be explored. Like many adolescent romantic films, it is more about being in love with the idea of being in love, than any real exploration of love itself.
"Dream..." is perhaps better viewed as a follow-up to the John Cusack vehicle "Say Anything," in which Skye played the part of the female love interest; here the girl is the protagonist in love and the male is the love object, a refreshing turn. However, Frankie is in her mid-20's, not in high school, and her ideas of love seem more than a little immature. In fact, her entire character seems that of the sheltered, spoiled rich girl who has an extensive wardrobe, goes to work when she feels like it, talks like someone who went to an expensive prep school or college, and whose me-first, out-of-touch-with-reality mode of thought is typical of someone who has lived a very sheltered life. These don't ring true at all with the details of her life: both her parents dead from a young age, she lives in an efficiency flat above her uncle's coffee shop, where she also works.
Apparently, the writer/director Tiffany (coincidence?) DeBartolo has included many autobiographical details in this, her debut film. The credits thank the "real David Schroeder (you know who you are)", the character name of Frankie's love interest. A further look reveals that a photo of her "Eddie and Candy DeBartolo" is used for the scene where Frankie reminisces about her mom and dad before they died in a car wreck. Is Tiffany the daughter of former San Francisco 49'ers owner (and former mob-affiliated federal witness in the recent corruption trial against Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards) Eddie DeBartolo? If so, that would explain many things: (1) the spoiled rich girl attitudes of the protagonist; (2) the setting of San Francisco and the gratuitous references to the 49'ers; (3) the Frank Sinatra and Italian-American themes in the film; and (4) how a novice writer got to direct her own film starring Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston.
I won't say that this movie is completely unappealing. Were my objections to the film solely based upon the naive, unrealistic expectations and attitudes of the lead characters, it could still be a good film. However, the pretentious script is like Woody Allen without the wit, accessibility, or acting -- and the intellectual overtones seem to be there only to the benefit of the screenwriter's self-esteem (at no point does it challenge the viewer to ponder any of its motifs). Aniston pulls her character off as well as the script and direction will allow, some of the supporting characters are somewhat entertaining, but Skye's overwrought performance is excruciatingly painful.
What really sinks this film is the unbearable weight of quotations that Frankie and David use. Both characters rely on quoting famous people -- from Aristotle to Morrissey -- to express the way they feel. This might be cute used once or twice, Frankie can't seem to go a minute in the film without seeming like she's reading from Bartlett's quotations. This, of course, does nothing at all for character development.
The movie changes from "artistic" black-and-white to color when Frankie meets David, and this is one of the cheesiest, blatant cinematic effects I have ever seen. Fortunately, the director doesn't have any more tricks like this in her bag.
Finally, the love story itself is probably going to invoke the "gag me with a spoon" response to most people who have ever actually been in an amorous relationship. The film suggests, naively, that Real Love happens at first sight and is about absolute passion between two soulmates ideally suited to each other, and any compromise on behalf of either party is a sign of the relationship's inadequacy. Of course the film ends at a convenient moment, and the nature of compromise never has to be explored. Like many adolescent romantic films, it is more about being in love with the idea of being in love, than any real exploration of love itself.