Good idea lost in the noise

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It is very much like a stage play, (not surprising since that is where it came from). It is all in the dialogue rather than action; interaction between two or three characters only most of the time, sudden changes of mood and dynamics, more cerebral than visceral. It is more expansive than a stage play though, even though it has that feel about it. The screenplay includes nice cinematic touches like the car phone dialogues where one car over takes the other and he shouts at him as he goes past. A similar thing was done from the balcony of the flat earlier in the film. There are also some qualities of a Michael Mann about it with the use of architecture and music as film elements.The film grew on me as it went along. One of the things that made it difficult perhaps, was that none of the characters were very likable, but the acting by all of them was a tour de force. Nice to see Meg Ryan given a chance to do some real acting instead of being just pretty-pretty set decoration. It's a film that is hard to take in one sitting I think, and will bear repeated viewing with more coming out each time.This film is likely to appeal to people who liked such films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Glengarry Glen Ross, Le Diner de Cons and others which have a stage play feel about them. Who said that theatre is dead?

Sean Penn as per usual delivers the goods - he truly has developed into one of the finest actors at work today - oh how I wish he'd do some stage work! I love the play this film is based on, so I know the material well. Anna Paquin and Gary Shandling are also fantastic - they completely nail Rab'es dialogue and complex emotional interiors. Where the film falls apart is in the casting of two crucial roles, Chaz Palminteri as Phil and Kevin Spacey as Mickey. Palminteri doesn't seem a natural with Rabe's dialogue, I am constantly aware that he's "acting"; the same can be said about Spacey, he brings the same schtick that he always drags out, the emotionally cold and creepy guy. Someone like Christopher Walken would have really been fantastic and believable in the part. There are some nice directorial touches of opening the play out and making it more cinematic, but not enough. This is a dialogue heavy piece, which I love, but too often for the medium we have to sit through scenes where we're told about events and not shown them - for instance the vibrator incident, this is mildly interesting hearing about it, but it could have been more revealing and hysterically funny showing us the incident!

HurlyBurly is one of those movies for me that i can watch over and over again, and each time see something different, each time connect to it in a different way. The movie captures one man's struggle for meaning and significance in his with a desperation that has rarely been caught on film before. The movie deals in archetypes, with nearly all the characters neatly sitting into one archetype or another. After watching the movie one cant help wonder which of the people he knows is like which of the characters in the movie.The direction and cinematography are used to serve the characters, and thats what the movie is about, the characters. Nothing much happens in the movie, other than people meeting, and people talking. I always find brutally honest characters interesting to watch, and this entire movie might just be about that. The cast, and the acting is excellent.Many people are bored by the movie because of its wordiness, and many people disparage it as a drug movie. Although the film is wordy, it is not a drug movie. I would say it is a philosophical movie if anything else. The movie forces you to be introspective, and the movie even acts like somewhat of a Rorschach test on the viewers. Some scenes, like the one where Eddie and Mickey describe the road trip, can be seen in different ways. I like to think that the way people understand this movie has a lot to do with the kind of people they are.Do watch this movie, but remember that the movie is demanding. The characters talk fast, and talk a lot. The ideas expressed are complicated, and need to be thought about to be properly understood. In fact, watch this movie twice.

Despite having an all-star cast, this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. The acting is terrible and the dialog is almost as bad. Sean Penn's performance almost made me wince with empathy for a good actor doing his worst performance. Kevin Spacey and Meg Ryan tried hard with the material, but they couldn't resurrect the script. I don't know if the real problem was the acting or the script or the director, but it all added up to a waste of time. I see that the other reviewer thought it was a great movie. Either tastes are really different or someone is doing some promotion. I rate this movie better than a made-for-TV-movie (barely). My wife gave up and went to bed. To give you a reading on my tastes, I agree with Ebert and Roeper ~80% of the time.