This is a miserable movie about the miserable movie star life of a miserable movie star. It's deliberately confusing and unintentionally confused. The script strives for sarcasm and sympathy in equal measure, but achieves only indifference. The direction is equally undecided. The acting is okay, yet watching Giovanni Ribisi's performance is like looking at a man struggling on a Stairmaster set at the highest level; there's a lot of obvious effort but he never goes anywhere. This film has nothing to say and makes a convoluted production out of not saying it.
Gray Evans (Giovanni Ribisi) is a movie star. He has a hot blonde movie star wife (Franka Potente), a perky assistant (Judy Greer), a private investigator (Jared Harris) and various other ass-kissing associates and "friends". He's also desperately unhappy with himself and pretty much everything in the world, except for his dreams/daydreams/hallucinations of a girl named Shana (Christina Ricci). He's also paranoid about both a possible stalker (Jason Lee) and his wife getting hit on by Elvis Costello. Gray wanders into an independent video store one day and becomes "John Hinkley loves Jodie Foster" obsessed with a perfectly normal couple (Joshua Jackson and Marisa Coughlan). Gray gets more and more disturbed and things end tragically.
You may have noticed that my description of I Love Your Work's plot doesn't actually contain a lot of, you know, plot. That's not a mistake. There are things that happen in the film. They just don't connect together or add up to lead in any narrative direction or toward any thematic conclusion. All it has is a generalized antipathy for the realities of celebrity without actually being honest about any of those realities.
I'm not sure, but I think this story is supposed to be about how the pressures of stardom destroy Gray Evans heart and mind. I'm not sure about that because there's no connection ever made between the two. The movie highlights the unpleasant aspects of fame and Gray displays a bucketful of emotional problems, yet it never manages to explain or demonstrate how the former caused the latter. It seems like Gray would have been just as screwed up as a grocery clerk or a stock broker.
I Love Your Work has no idea if it's about Gray Evans the man, Gray Evans the movie star or Gray Evans the victim of movie stardom. It's also at least 15 to 20 minutes too long and has an ending that is wrongly hilarious no matter how you look at it. Either these filmmakers were trying to be funny even though it is completely inappropriate for the story they're telling, or they were trying to be poignant and botched it so badly it would get a belly laugh out of the couple from American Gothic.
If you're a struggling actor and filmmaker and would be comforted at the thought that the folks more successful than you are awful wretches leading lives of bitter torment, you might enjoy this movie. Everyone else would probably be better off polishing up their Sudoku skills.
Gray Evans (Giovanni Ribisi) is a movie star. He has a hot blonde movie star wife (Franka Potente), a perky assistant (Judy Greer), a private investigator (Jared Harris) and various other ass-kissing associates and "friends". He's also desperately unhappy with himself and pretty much everything in the world, except for his dreams/daydreams/hallucinations of a girl named Shana (Christina Ricci). He's also paranoid about both a possible stalker (Jason Lee) and his wife getting hit on by Elvis Costello. Gray wanders into an independent video store one day and becomes "John Hinkley loves Jodie Foster" obsessed with a perfectly normal couple (Joshua Jackson and Marisa Coughlan). Gray gets more and more disturbed and things end tragically.
You may have noticed that my description of I Love Your Work's plot doesn't actually contain a lot of, you know, plot. That's not a mistake. There are things that happen in the film. They just don't connect together or add up to lead in any narrative direction or toward any thematic conclusion. All it has is a generalized antipathy for the realities of celebrity without actually being honest about any of those realities.
I'm not sure, but I think this story is supposed to be about how the pressures of stardom destroy Gray Evans heart and mind. I'm not sure about that because there's no connection ever made between the two. The movie highlights the unpleasant aspects of fame and Gray displays a bucketful of emotional problems, yet it never manages to explain or demonstrate how the former caused the latter. It seems like Gray would have been just as screwed up as a grocery clerk or a stock broker.
I Love Your Work has no idea if it's about Gray Evans the man, Gray Evans the movie star or Gray Evans the victim of movie stardom. It's also at least 15 to 20 minutes too long and has an ending that is wrongly hilarious no matter how you look at it. Either these filmmakers were trying to be funny even though it is completely inappropriate for the story they're telling, or they were trying to be poignant and botched it so badly it would get a belly laugh out of the couple from American Gothic.
If you're a struggling actor and filmmaker and would be comforted at the thought that the folks more successful than you are awful wretches leading lives of bitter torment, you might enjoy this movie. Everyone else would probably be better off polishing up their Sudoku skills.