Not a bad effort from star writer director Levy, but first timer mistakes keep it from really taking off. It's also all rather mild in all regards, be it as romance or drama or semi tragedy or comedy it dabbles in all these to not very exciting funny or moving ends. All the characters tend to speak alike and the performances are also of the soft-just above a whisper variety that make you want to shake them and ask them to speak up at times.
The title is kind of funny, with it's Charlie Brown allusions. It's no spoiler to say the film is about Levy's character dying at the start and how this effects his husband and his husbands friends.
It's really about this group of friends, two gay men, former lovers, and their gal pal a sort of actress. They are all seemingly very well off finacially which makes this a sort of mild neurotic problems of the upper class story, how bad can you feel as they all wear expensive clothing and hang out in the beautiful locations beautifully decorated. The story sets up possible financial issues for Levy's character but these are dropped. You really kind of feel not much is at stake, Levy's character is kind of sad, never seems on the verge of collapse though, nor does he display much bitter wit--aside from one very funny line.
It feels like a pretty good first draft of a script, there is one good twist early on that doesn't really go anywhere after that, you wish some real bitter comedy or real soul shattering grief might errupt but never does. Levy is a talented performer getting to make his his movie here, but as a filmmaker and feature length writer he shows his lack of experience and a lack of being able to look at the material from an audience point of view. The valid points the film does make about grief and friendship tend to just get repeated over and over again in the dialogue. It's pretty much all talk actually, the two kind of dramatic scenes happen off screen. One nice "date scene" at an art gallery is an exception.
Visually it's all smooth and pretty looking, the only thing that stands out is Levy's glasses, often they glow in an otherwise dark scene, this happens over and over again, is this to highlight his eyes, it tends to take away from the expression in them actually, it seems like either just a choice or a try at something that doesn't totally work.
Location work in Paris and London are beautiful, music score doesn't add much life toany of it. The fact that the film could probably be exactly the same with a male and female married couple rather and a gay couple sort of points to the generic polite middle of the quiet road the film remains on all the way through.
Also as a first time director and writer Levy's influences show, most of them being from Woody Allen, perhaps mostly Annie Hall which is far superior.
The title is kind of funny, with it's Charlie Brown allusions. It's no spoiler to say the film is about Levy's character dying at the start and how this effects his husband and his husbands friends.
It's really about this group of friends, two gay men, former lovers, and their gal pal a sort of actress. They are all seemingly very well off finacially which makes this a sort of mild neurotic problems of the upper class story, how bad can you feel as they all wear expensive clothing and hang out in the beautiful locations beautifully decorated. The story sets up possible financial issues for Levy's character but these are dropped. You really kind of feel not much is at stake, Levy's character is kind of sad, never seems on the verge of collapse though, nor does he display much bitter wit--aside from one very funny line.
It feels like a pretty good first draft of a script, there is one good twist early on that doesn't really go anywhere after that, you wish some real bitter comedy or real soul shattering grief might errupt but never does. Levy is a talented performer getting to make his his movie here, but as a filmmaker and feature length writer he shows his lack of experience and a lack of being able to look at the material from an audience point of view. The valid points the film does make about grief and friendship tend to just get repeated over and over again in the dialogue. It's pretty much all talk actually, the two kind of dramatic scenes happen off screen. One nice "date scene" at an art gallery is an exception.
Visually it's all smooth and pretty looking, the only thing that stands out is Levy's glasses, often they glow in an otherwise dark scene, this happens over and over again, is this to highlight his eyes, it tends to take away from the expression in them actually, it seems like either just a choice or a try at something that doesn't totally work.
Location work in Paris and London are beautiful, music score doesn't add much life toany of it. The fact that the film could probably be exactly the same with a male and female married couple rather and a gay couple sort of points to the generic polite middle of the quiet road the film remains on all the way through.
Also as a first time director and writer Levy's influences show, most of them being from Woody Allen, perhaps mostly Annie Hall which is far superior.