Go backOur reviews service now comes with an RSS feed so click the icon and syndicate. 
Talote staff recommend lovefilm.com. So click and be happy!
|
12/10/2008
|
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
|
I enjoy Simon Pegg's body of work. From Spaced to Hot Fuzz his work in Britain has been exemplary. His work outside of Britain has been good but not as good Big Nothing for example fell relatively flat. I was hopeful though going into How to lose friends and alienate people as films about the film industry tend to be quite interesting. It was also a relatively UK based production with filming mainly taking place over here and being funded by British companies. To some extent the film delivers on its initial promise.
Sidney Young (Pegg) is a socially inept magazine writer who always stirs people the wrong way and is getting chucked out of all the celebrity parties. He lands a job with New York based Sharps magazine and is placed in some low wrung job while he tries to impress idol Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) with his pieces ripping apart celebrities and their lives. Unsurprisingly considering the profile of the magazine he writes for he cannot get these published and therefore makes little headway. Meanwhile he is not improving his reputation at celebrity parties which he now has free reign over as he gives his slightly bizarre opinions to whoever may listen and meanwhile gets any good ideas he has taken away from him. Put simply it is about someone trying to succeed in a foreign environment for which they are thoroughly unprepared. Chuck into this the delightful Megan Fox and a Jeff Bridges who clearly loves what he can do with this role and you are set for good things right?
Well, I cannot fault the story line, the set up or any of the technical parts of the film. The set pieces all work well and are carried out brilliantly by Pegg and co. The problem comes from a relatively poor script which splits the film into mini episodes. Set pieces seem to happen at random and any one of them could be moved to any other place in the film without harming it in any way. It therefore feels almost like a loosely tied together sketch show at times and this loses the film its rhythm. This would make some sense considering the directors previous work on Curb your enthusiasm. The other thing I didn’t like was that Simon Pegg aside the characters are not really fully rounded. Sure we find out some details about the other characters but Kiersten Dunst’s Alison although being the lead female character is something of an unknown to me. I know where she grew up, that she works at the magazine and is writing a novel. Other than that she is a bit of a mystery. Megan Fox’s character just seems to show up occasionally she is not built up at all; she has no personality as such. Basically only Sidney and Clayton are given any type of back story at all and are near enough the only characters with personality. I have seen a lot better than this and it lets down what is at heart a very good story. While Young may shy away from conventional conversation and is in every scene it would have been nice to deepen the experience by expanding the characters.
Overall then, I did enjoy the premise of How to Lose Friends And Alienate People and I thought that the acting was good throughout with Simon Pegg putting in his usual strong performance to win over the audience. But the film takes liberties with its other characters never really giving them a story or a reason for being except to strengthen the story. The true interest and banter comes from Sidney’s talks with Jeff Bridges’ character who really is the best thing about this whole thing. I enjoyed it but it could be better.
Review by Jonathan Little
|
|
Our Rating:
|
There are no votes for this films yet.
Please login to rate this film.
|
|
|
