PS – USA – Dir: Dylan Kidd – 2/5
(This review is one of mine from the 2005 Sydney Film Festival)

Another disappointing film.  And over-written. It gets off to a very clunky  start. The set-up is far too talky. And Laura Linney’s character (Louise) is just unbelievable as far as I’m concerned. She gets dressed into a ridiculously girlish outfit to go to the interview with student applicant “F. Scott” (what a crazy name! – no one would adopt it, unless they were 12). So she’s in a pretty girly party dress at work – and why didn’t she take it off when they made love? She had the time!

That’s a practical quibble, but so many things Louise did didn’t ring true to me.  For example, a woman like Louise would never play the pretend game on their 1st date. It was so cruel! She acts like a bitch and she would lose the guy – except that he never would have stuck around in the first place. F Scott is also too good to be true, but the character is played well by Topher Grace, making F Scott as believable as possible. Also (contrary to other critics) I found a Marcia Gay Harden a breath of fresh air.  She tried hard to breathe life into her character, “Missy” (where do they get these names?? “Oiusie” for “Louise” was just nauseating).  She says what I was thinking all along: “You have a perfect snowflake who’s just dying to get to know you better & what are you doing? Sitting here arguing with me”.  Hear hear!

I lost patience with the film, but I blame the script and the director, not the actors.