Tag: Alan Tudyk

The Trouble With Jessica (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Sarah and Tom have one final dinner party before selling their home. The suicide of an unwanted guest ruins the party (and the chances of a successful sale)

I fucking love a good dinner party scene. There’s something about them that’s so tense to watch unfold. I think it’s because they have societal expectations in ways that other parties don’t. There’s an expectation that everyone will behave politely and behave well. There’s also the fact that they tend to be very conversation-based, so it’s VERY easy to get information over via dialogue. “so how’s the new job going?” is a perfectly normal thing to ask at a dinner party, so it’s very useful for exposition. I mention that because the one in here has some of the most tense five seconds I’ve ever seen. A tenseness which is then made worse by the revelation that the character was joking. There’s a definite shift in dynamics there. Ordinarily, it would be “This rudeness puts everyone on the defensive”, but here it actually does the opposite, it puts everyone on the offensive, against her, so your feelings are conflicted when she commits suicide soon after.

On that subject; I wasn’t a fan of the post-suicide moment. She commits suicide, they try to cut her down and save her but are unsuccessful, and she falls onto the floor dead. Title card. That, that I’m fine with. But then there are establishing shots of the house and food before we go to the characters reacting. Those shots are only roughly 5 seconds long but completely kill any momentum. It’s just a weird narrative decision.

That’s The Trouble With Jessica’s (TTWJ, pronounced That-weej) biggest flaw; it has a good story but no idea what to do with it. The main farcical driver is that the characters want to move her body to her own house because they think having a dead body in their house will affect their house price. Very funny, very middle class. But they get to that decision far too quickly.

Part of the problem is that the satire never hits as sharply as it could. Primarily because tonally, it feels like the target of its ire and its target for a viewing audience are one and the same, so it’s very scared of annoying the people who are viewing it.

It REALLY feels like a weirdly dark episode of Coupling without Jeff, in which Jane kills herself. Seriously, watch this movie with the core 4 from that sitcom in mind, if I told you “Which Coupling character would this person be?” I GUARANTEE you’d get the exact same. That’s a criticism of the script, by the way, nothing against the performances. Shirely Henderson gets the plaudits, but it’s fascinating how well Alan Tudyk plays a middle-aged Brit.

The familiarity and lack of bite aren’t the only issues with the script. There are completely unnecessary flashbacks to scenes we saw earlier, it would have worked better if we saw just the flashbacks, not the originals. It also has trouble ending. It doesn’t so much drive to the home stretch, as stutter.

It has some fun moments though. The intertitles are interesting, but when they get to “The trouble with driving a dead body across London in the middle of the night”, they suddenly become brilliant. Some of the dialogue is hilarious, and the characters are very believable.

In summary, I’m glad I saw this, but that’s mostly because it’s available on Netflix and I watched it there, if I watched it at the cinema I’d be much harsher towards it.

Game Night (2018)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

I saw this as the final film in a 3-film binge at the cinema which also included I, Tonya and The Shape Of Water. So it was a weird contrast, started with two films which have pretty much swept all the awards this season, and then ended with one that definitely didn’t. So it came as a surprise that I was really impressed with a lot in this. Visually it did more than I expected it to. A lot of the establishing shots were set up and lit so that the houses looked more like toy models on a board game. It’s a great visual trick and one that wasn’t actually needed, which makes me appreciate it even more. They could have just done them normally, but the fact they did, was cute and added to the film. This film is actually a lot better in a cinematic sense than you expect, not just with the aforementioned establishing shots, but also the action scenes. They’re not quickly done, the action lingers on and is really well constructed. Shout out has to go a scene involving the characters playing keep-away with a Faberge egg. A seemingly one-shot scene that tracks all the way through a house and involves all the characters at different locations in the house. A remarkable achievement and one that will surely land in my “best scenes of the year” come years end.

So onto the rest of the film. This wasn’t the best film I’ve seen, but it was very very good. Was funny, had more twists than a pretzel, and the performances did what they needed to. It’s basically the cinematic equivalent of a burger, it won’t change your life, and you won’t rush out to consume it again, but it is incredibly enjoyable whilst it lasts, and you will have fond memories of it.

Back to the performances; Billy Magnussen, in particular, was impressive. From what I saw in the trailers, and from his opening scene, I assumed his performance would be “Poundland Alan Tudyk”, but it was a great performance. So more like the Pepsi to Tudyk’s Coca-Cola, not quite the same but enough similarities where you like it anyway. His character is basically a smart idiot, which is always a great character for comedy. Actually, the entire thing is full of well-developed characters. 10 characters are given extensive screen time, they all have their own personalities and quirks. Whilst the film itself doesn’t really lend itself to a sequel, the characters do.

I feel special mention has to go to Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams. Not only for their performances on their own but also their on-screen chemistry. They make an easily believable onscreen couple, which makes it easier to root for them. Also, thank God this film doesn’t go with the traditional “couple fights after a misunderstanding” sub-plot. No matter what goes on in the film they’re a tight couple, it’s actually genuinely heartwarming and sweet to see such an idyllic vision of love and relationships in modern cinema. The montage where we see their relationship develop and grow is a brilliant piece of relationship-building, very good, very funny, and incredibly sweet.

So, in summary. I’d highly recommend this film, a welcome piece of comedy to watch during the overly serious Oscar season. A fun caper that you can lose yourself in briefly. Buy on DVD if you see it in a 2 for 1 deal.