The Lather Effect
by Sarah Kelly
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DVD details
Actor: David Herman, Eric Stoltz, Ione Skye, Tate Donovan, William MapotherDirector: Sarah Kelly
Brand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: ANCHOR BAY
DVD Reviews of The Lather Effect
DVD Review: Don't repeat
Summary: 2 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
A word of advice to the marketers of film. The tag-line for this movie -- used in much of the publicity and repeated on the back of the DVD case -- is: "If the '80s were the ultimate party, welcome to the hangover." This cannot possibly have been thought to appeal to anyone who has ever had a hangover, anyone who has ever known anyone who has had a hangover, or anyone who owns a dictionary and can research what a hangover must be like to experience. Hangovers are unpleasant; you probably don't want the audience associating your film with something unpleasant before the first reel has begun.
The movie's opening scene is the aforementioned hangover. Specifically, it's the morning after a massive reunion party where a bunch of 30-somethings trashed one of their parent's house (kindly, they threw the party just two days before the house is to be inspected for sale). Given the effort the producers went through to decorate the set to convey the absolute madness that this party must have entailed, I was initially expecting a lot of flashbacks to the party but there were none to be seen.
Gene Siskel once opined that the creators had failed if their final film was less interesting than a hypothetical documentary about the same cast and crew having lunch together. I'd like to add a corollary to that statement. Is this film more interesting than behind-the-scenes footage of the set designers emptying and placing beer cans and vodka bottles in every possible location? I couldn't help but feel that showing us the party would have been much more fun than simply telling us about it.
The film revolves around a group of friends looking back on their high school days, thinking about how things were, how things are now and how things could have been. Despite the good cast, many times I simply felt that I was flipping through someone else's yearbook. I could relate to the immediate personalities of the characters, but the actual history and backstory didn't quite come through.
I think my opinion of this film can be summarized by the reaction I had when one of the 36-year-old characters says in a sad tone, "I can't believe high school is over."
What?! You... What?!
(Granted, I am slightly paraphrasing in that quote, but that is definitely the meaning behind the line.)
The characters are so self-absorbed, so backward-looking that I found most of their monologues to be extremely irritating. And after I was annoyed, I found it mildly depressing to think of people hanging on to the pettiness and silliness of events from twenty years prior. This isn't a treatise on Faulkner's "The dead is never past"; this is simply a group of people who need a kick in the backside and an order to grow up.
And I have to say that this is a difficult film to dislike. It's very enthusiastic. Earnest perhaps is an adequate way of describing it. It's got a good pace and was well produced. The chemistry between the cast members is exceptionally good; I immediately believed that they had been friends for decades with their own interweaving, complicated pasts. Eric Stoltz is particularly fun as the metaphorical Voice of God who dispenses wisdom and truth throughout the film.
I think the main problem with the film is that it falls between two stools. It's not an immature, raunchy, no-holds-barred fun fest. And neither is it a mature and deep look at the way people grow and change over the years. For an example of the latter, take the story of a character who begins the film unhappy and regretful about her life. By the end of the film, mentally and emotionally reconciling just one event in her past completely changes her entire outlook on life. It's too neat.
This criticism of that particular plot point is reflective of other parts of the film. The conclusion is reached far too easily. Everything ends up tidy which just doesn't ring true given the messiness we spend the whole movie exploring. Several threads are just forgotten about or their resolution is far too simplistic.
THE LATHER EFFECT is competently made and well-acted. It tells its story effectively. I just happened to really dislike what the film was saying. It's not terribly funny when it's shallow and it isn't particularly meaningful when it's deep. It tries to do too many things at once and ends up not succeeding at most of them.
Description of The Lather Effect
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