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Archive for the ‘Giovanni Ribisi’ Category

Results

12 Jun

Results – directed by Andrew Bujalski. Oddball Comedy. 105 minutes Color 2015.

★★★★★

The Story: A colliding romantic trio circles around a physical fitness gym, until two of them bump the other one off and realize the inevitable.

~

Four great actors working today give me the cue for adoration. They are Allison Janney, Lee Pace, Joan Allen, and Guy Pearce. I eagerly trace them to their latest. I am predisposed to rave them. I am prepared to sit back and allow them to prove me happy.

Guy Pearce is the most essential of these, in the sense that his presence in supporting roles always turns the key to the dynamic of the story. What he brings that no one else can bring is a conservation of energy through which the role as written can make its mark on the story for the audience. But sometimes he is give a great big dolloping leading role, and such a role we have here, and I pray you do not miss it.

He plays the completely brain-empty proprietor of a physical fitness gym. He spouts nothing but the most steadfast clichés. It is quite wonderful to hear him vocalize the human potential babble which is the vision of his firm. As an actor he never relents. He never falls back on a roll of the eyes or a pitch for empathy. He is ruthlessly the character itself.

Backed by three wonderful actors I have never heard of, we get Pearce in full force of his gift for give and take. It is an actors’ jubilee.

Cobie Smulders plays his star trainer and sometime squeeze. She is absolutely marvelous. And so is Kevin Corrigan as an orphaned nouveau riche, and Giovanni Ribisi as the slime bag lawyer. They are all backed by a fully written script with characters so fleshed out you simply never know what they are going to do or say next.

The writer staged and directed them, and while it is my usual caveat to speak against the possible success of such a pairing, here it works like gangbusters. The direction and filming and color and cutting look patchwork – but that is the basic ground of alliance for these characters. None of them fit together. As romantic couples you could not possibly suppose any of them would get along for two minutes.

But the richness is: what the hell are most married couples doing together anyhow? Can you really understand why two people are so joined? What do they possibly have in common? What keeps them together all these years?

You’ll sort it out for yourself in the coffee shop afterwards. I so enjoyed it. I wish I could be there to hear you did too.

 
 
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