Starring William H. Macy and Debra Eisenstadt
Directed by David Mamet
Directed by David Mamet
Went and saw this on Broadway a week-and-a-half ago and didn't love it. I thought the performances were good, but the play itself was quite flawed. I figured I'd give the movie a shot and see if the issue up in NYC was just a flawed production.
It wasn't.
Once again, you've got a female character who isn't too bright in act one who manages to become a genius in the course of a few months, manipulating a man to believe he's done something wrong when no sane person would believe that he has.
On film, Mamet's dialogue comes across as super-stilted (which I noticed onstage as well, but it worked better there). Hardly any of the lines ring true or sound like anything people would actually say. And Mamet's direction is pretty awful...very by the book and basic (I guess it's difficult, though, when your movie only contains two people). For some reason, I also noticed the poor production design -- instead of looking like a movie, it looked like the set of a high school production of the play.
Simply for my benefit should I look back at this blog in a few years and wonder what I thought way back when, Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman were much better than Debra Eisenstadt and William H. Macy...so the Broadway production had that going for it.
The RyMickey Rating: D
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