There are 10 significant characters in this film. Only 4 of them have anything resembling a distinct personality. There are two separate love triangles on display. Both require the people involved to be stupid while one begins and the other ends with wildly abrupt emotional transformations. There are so many musical interludes slapping you in the face that the viewer eventually becomes numb to them all. There's a character who receives a revelation about his life from staring at fireflies. In case I'm being too subtle, Not Since You is written with all the depth and intelligence of a TV ad for your local chiropractor.
8 people who were friends in New York City in the summer of 2001 reunite years later in Georgia when one of them gets married. There's Sam (Desmond Harrington), an aspiring writer who looks like a grim-faced male model. Back in the day, Sam was in love with Amy (Kathleen Robertson). Why? Who knows? This movie never bothers to explain or justify any of the relationships that exist in this story. On arriving for the wedding, Sam learns that Amy has been married for years to the Fabio-haired Ryan (Christian Kane) but even though the two ex-lovers haven't seen or spoken to each other for the better part of a decade, they're instantly consumed with pathetically obvious longing for each other. The conflict between that and Amy's marriage is the heart of Not Since You, but the possibility of two non-entities breaking the heart of a third is not the kind thing to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Then there's Howard (Jon Abrahams), an annoyingly aggressive entrepreneur who's still seething over his ex-girlfriend Victoria (Sunny Mabrey) leaving him for his best friend Billy (Will Estes). Victoria wants to get married but Billy is afraid that will just hurt Howard even more. Howard's bad feelings have stewed for years until he can barely contain them so, of course, his wounded ego is eventually healed after a 30 second conversation with Victoria. Now, Victoria spends the whole frickin' film demanding that Billy patch things up with Howard, but apparently she never bothered talking to him herself. Why? Who knows?
The two remaining friends, Joey and Sarah (Elden Hanson and Sara Rue), get smushed together in an infatuation that helps to heal Joey's feelings of 9/11 survivor's guilt. That storyline actually works much better on screen than my description suggests, but it's still lacking even the most basic sort of grounding or detail, like why Joey and Sarah never hooked up when they were in New York.
Oh, and Barry Corbin wanders through the film acting all Southern and stuff.
Kathleen Robertson is a stunning beauty and she and the rest of the cast certainly seem like capable performers. However, they're given roles to play that are so plain and thin they're virtually non-existent. Not Since You is all about 8 friends but it gives no indication of why these people were ever friends or what their friendships were like. You can tell these actors are trying to play these parts as real and believable as they can. They've just got nothing onto which they can grab.
Co-writer/Director Jeff Stephenson does a simplistic, though ultimately adequate job of juggling these multiple plot lines. The scenes look okay for the most part and things unfold in an understandable manner. He never does anything as a director, though, to overcome the vacuous and sketchy script he helped write.
If you haven't figured it out, this is an attempt at doing 21st century version of The Big Chill. That there's nothing of style of substance here to define whether this generational tale is about Gen X, Gen Y or the Millennials kind of encapsulates the shallow failure of this motion picture. Three people wrote this screenplay but there needed to be a fourth to come in and fill up all the empty spaces in this story and these characters. Lacking that, Not Since you does not need to be watched.
8 people who were friends in New York City in the summer of 2001 reunite years later in Georgia when one of them gets married. There's Sam (Desmond Harrington), an aspiring writer who looks like a grim-faced male model. Back in the day, Sam was in love with Amy (Kathleen Robertson). Why? Who knows? This movie never bothers to explain or justify any of the relationships that exist in this story. On arriving for the wedding, Sam learns that Amy has been married for years to the Fabio-haired Ryan (Christian Kane) but even though the two ex-lovers haven't seen or spoken to each other for the better part of a decade, they're instantly consumed with pathetically obvious longing for each other. The conflict between that and Amy's marriage is the heart of Not Since You, but the possibility of two non-entities breaking the heart of a third is not the kind thing to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Then there's Howard (Jon Abrahams), an annoyingly aggressive entrepreneur who's still seething over his ex-girlfriend Victoria (Sunny Mabrey) leaving him for his best friend Billy (Will Estes). Victoria wants to get married but Billy is afraid that will just hurt Howard even more. Howard's bad feelings have stewed for years until he can barely contain them so, of course, his wounded ego is eventually healed after a 30 second conversation with Victoria. Now, Victoria spends the whole frickin' film demanding that Billy patch things up with Howard, but apparently she never bothered talking to him herself. Why? Who knows?
The two remaining friends, Joey and Sarah (Elden Hanson and Sara Rue), get smushed together in an infatuation that helps to heal Joey's feelings of 9/11 survivor's guilt. That storyline actually works much better on screen than my description suggests, but it's still lacking even the most basic sort of grounding or detail, like why Joey and Sarah never hooked up when they were in New York.
Oh, and Barry Corbin wanders through the film acting all Southern and stuff.
Kathleen Robertson is a stunning beauty and she and the rest of the cast certainly seem like capable performers. However, they're given roles to play that are so plain and thin they're virtually non-existent. Not Since You is all about 8 friends but it gives no indication of why these people were ever friends or what their friendships were like. You can tell these actors are trying to play these parts as real and believable as they can. They've just got nothing onto which they can grab.
Co-writer/Director Jeff Stephenson does a simplistic, though ultimately adequate job of juggling these multiple plot lines. The scenes look okay for the most part and things unfold in an understandable manner. He never does anything as a director, though, to overcome the vacuous and sketchy script he helped write.
If you haven't figured it out, this is an attempt at doing 21st century version of The Big Chill. That there's nothing of style of substance here to define whether this generational tale is about Gen X, Gen Y or the Millennials kind of encapsulates the shallow failure of this motion picture. Three people wrote this screenplay but there needed to be a fourth to come in and fill up all the empty spaces in this story and these characters. Lacking that, Not Since you does not need to be watched.
