The Lather Effect
I watched this DVD last night after the Steelers game. And even though I'm not a big football fan, the game was a lot better.
The Lather Effect is promoted as an Generation X version of The Big Chill with a soundtrack full of 80s music instead of the 60s classics pushed in The Big Chill. It definitely works as far as the soundtrack goes. Nice tunes though some of them weren't being done by original artists. I guess they had a strict budget. The actors were all pretty good too though they didn't do much acting. Not their fault---the script just called for angst and posturing. Supposedly these were the grown up versions (mostly mid-30s) of SoCal teens from the late 80s. Ha! They were still acting like teens and believe me, they were far too old to pull off that act.
Blame the producers, I'd say. This was the pet project of Eric Stoltz, who I think is incredibly likable as an actor, but as a producer it just seems like he's trying to recreate an adult form of the John Hughes films of the 80s. And cast himself as a neighborhood guru (and lifeguard) who helps several of these angst ridden folk find themselves. It's not pretty!
The movie opens with us viewing the carnage and aftermath of an epic house party. It was thrown by Valinda (played by Connie Britton in her most appealing role to date) who is a mid 30s Mom who is supposed to be readying her parent's house for sale the next day. Now, I find that scenario very hard to believe---and this film is full of scenes like that. A trauma surgeon who is *ucking every guy at the party, the aforementioned Mom who's about to screw up a multimillion dollar real estate deal 'cause she wants to party, a rich actor / nurse who gets into a fist fight at the party, et cetera. This is a movie scripted for teens, not adults. It's just not believable.
Still, it's vaguely watchable due to the music and the ability of the actors. Too bad they didn't get a real script. This is no Big Chill, regardless of the generation. In The Big Chill the former classmates gathered due to the funeral of their bad boy friend, in The Lather Effect it's the house party that pulls them in and the angst is dealing with a relationship that was broken apart due to another friend's lies. Suicide versus broke up for the wrong reasons. That's the difference between the two. Though I must admit, I recently saw half of the Big Chill with Elle and it doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would. It'd been about 10 years since I watched it last and my opinion of the movie is a little lower now that I'm the age of the people in the movie and can better relate to what they're going through. The wankers.
The Lather Effect is promoted as an Generation X version of The Big Chill with a soundtrack full of 80s music instead of the 60s classics pushed in The Big Chill. It definitely works as far as the soundtrack goes. Nice tunes though some of them weren't being done by original artists. I guess they had a strict budget. The actors were all pretty good too though they didn't do much acting. Not their fault---the script just called for angst and posturing. Supposedly these were the grown up versions (mostly mid-30s) of SoCal teens from the late 80s. Ha! They were still acting like teens and believe me, they were far too old to pull off that act.
Blame the producers, I'd say. This was the pet project of Eric Stoltz, who I think is incredibly likable as an actor, but as a producer it just seems like he's trying to recreate an adult form of the John Hughes films of the 80s. And cast himself as a neighborhood guru (and lifeguard) who helps several of these angst ridden folk find themselves. It's not pretty!
The movie opens with us viewing the carnage and aftermath of an epic house party. It was thrown by Valinda (played by Connie Britton in her most appealing role to date) who is a mid 30s Mom who is supposed to be readying her parent's house for sale the next day. Now, I find that scenario very hard to believe---and this film is full of scenes like that. A trauma surgeon who is *ucking every guy at the party, the aforementioned Mom who's about to screw up a multimillion dollar real estate deal 'cause she wants to party, a rich actor / nurse who gets into a fist fight at the party, et cetera. This is a movie scripted for teens, not adults. It's just not believable.
Still, it's vaguely watchable due to the music and the ability of the actors. Too bad they didn't get a real script. This is no Big Chill, regardless of the generation. In The Big Chill the former classmates gathered due to the funeral of their bad boy friend, in The Lather Effect it's the house party that pulls them in and the angst is dealing with a relationship that was broken apart due to another friend's lies. Suicide versus broke up for the wrong reasons. That's the difference between the two. Though I must admit, I recently saw half of the Big Chill with Elle and it doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would. It'd been about 10 years since I watched it last and my opinion of the movie is a little lower now that I'm the age of the people in the movie and can better relate to what they're going through. The wankers.
Comments