Monday, January 15, 2007
Hate it, Sorry
By Edward Copeland
The toll has become staggering. Annette Bening. Jill Clayburgh. Those two unknowns in Babel. Peter O'Toole. Ellen Page. Toni Collette (in The Night Listener at least). Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly in Blood Diamond. The number of actors giving good to great performances in poor to mediocre movies in 2006 has been brutal. Add to that list Robin Wright Penn in Sorry, Haters, though in this case the movie is so awful that it's difficult to say that it's worth seeing despite the fact that Wright Penn is so good in it.
Jeff Stanzler's Sorry, Haters aspires to be a provocative take on people's addiction to tragedy, especially in light of 9/11 — at least that's my best guess as to this film's point. What it is really about is a crazy woman (Wright Penn) and it uses the 9/11 attacks as background.
For anyone who thought United 93 or World Trade Center might be exploitative, check out Sorry, Haters — this is exploitation of those events of the worst kind.
The story begins when Wright Penn's character steps into the taxi of a Muslim cab driver (Abdellatif Kechiche) and proceeds to turn the man's life into a nightmare. It's like Misery, only using New York as the setting instead of a snow-bound cabin and without the psychological depth.
Sorry, Haters was such a pain to watch, that I don't really even feel like writing that much about it. It reminds me of the dream I once had for a three word review of a movie I wanted to publish in a newspaper: "It's a turd."
However, I can't deny how good Wright Penn is in it. The question is why waste her talent on such lousy material as this? The Independent Spirit Awards nominated her for best actress and I think she deserves the nomination, but no one deserves to sit through this awful film just to see it. Maybe I was too hard on Running With Scissors.
Tweet
The toll has become staggering. Annette Bening. Jill Clayburgh. Those two unknowns in Babel. Peter O'Toole. Ellen Page. Toni Collette (in The Night Listener at least). Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly in Blood Diamond. The number of actors giving good to great performances in poor to mediocre movies in 2006 has been brutal. Add to that list Robin Wright Penn in Sorry, Haters, though in this case the movie is so awful that it's difficult to say that it's worth seeing despite the fact that Wright Penn is so good in it.
Jeff Stanzler's Sorry, Haters aspires to be a provocative take on people's addiction to tragedy, especially in light of 9/11 — at least that's my best guess as to this film's point. What it is really about is a crazy woman (Wright Penn) and it uses the 9/11 attacks as background.
For anyone who thought United 93 or World Trade Center might be exploitative, check out Sorry, Haters — this is exploitation of those events of the worst kind.
The story begins when Wright Penn's character steps into the taxi of a Muslim cab driver (Abdellatif Kechiche) and proceeds to turn the man's life into a nightmare. It's like Misery, only using New York as the setting instead of a snow-bound cabin and without the psychological depth.
Sorry, Haters was such a pain to watch, that I don't really even feel like writing that much about it. It reminds me of the dream I once had for a three word review of a movie I wanted to publish in a newspaper: "It's a turd."
However, I can't deny how good Wright Penn is in it. The question is why waste her talent on such lousy material as this? The Independent Spirit Awards nominated her for best actress and I think she deserves the nomination, but no one deserves to sit through this awful film just to see it. Maybe I was too hard on Running With Scissors.
Tweet
Labels: 00s, Bening, DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, O'Toole, Robin Wright, Toni Collette
