IFC Prods.
PARK CITY -- How annoyed a viewer will get with Greg Harrison's psychological thriller "November" will depend on how many times one has seen movies that play games with reality by tracking back and forth over a single incident, each time providing new and contradictory clues. This InDigEnt production, shot in digital video on a skimpy budget, does show how filmmakers can use light, color and design to push movies into experimental modes of storytelling more intriguing than big-budget thrillers that pay scant attention to style. The problem lies with the story these filmmakers choose to tell.
Benjamin Brand's script never levels with a viewer. Each time you witness the events of a Nov. 7 convenience store robbery, in which several people die, things transpire differently. This turns out to be neither a case of "Rashomon" nor recovered memory. Rather, the film is b.s.-ing you all along. What happens in the first act is shown to be a misrepresentation by the second act, which in turn proves a deliberate distortion in the third.
Like "Blow Up", the protagonist is a photographer, a person who supposedly can capture reality. On the night in question, Sophie (Courteney Cox) and boyfriend Hugh James Le Gros) stop at a corner market. While she waits in the car, Hugh is shot during the robbery.
A while after the murders, Sophie goes to a therapist (Nora Dunn) for help with stress and headaches. One day in the photography class she teaches, a slide taken of the store the night of the robbery turns up in the projector's carousel. She then experiences nightmares about the event that contradict her original story to police. Is she cracking up? Or did some other person witness the murders?
The night of Nov. 7 is shown three times, each with the circumstances and outcome drastically altered. The film also plays fast and loose with chronology, making it unclear whether events take place before or after the murders.
Playing a bewildered if not clueless character, Cox is as convincing as she could possibly be. Le Gros, Dunn, Michael Ealy as Cox's secret lover and Anne Archer as her mother are game, but the story line keeps changing their attitudes and motivations.
Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber is the movie's real heroine, as she dramatically meshes the real with the surreal, creating different looks and emotions for each segment through light and color.
PARK CITY -- How annoyed a viewer will get with Greg Harrison's psychological thriller "November" will depend on how many times one has seen movies that play games with reality by tracking back and forth over a single incident, each time providing new and contradictory clues. This InDigEnt production, shot in digital video on a skimpy budget, does show how filmmakers can use light, color and design to push movies into experimental modes of storytelling more intriguing than big-budget thrillers that pay scant attention to style. The problem lies with the story these filmmakers choose to tell.
Benjamin Brand's script never levels with a viewer. Each time you witness the events of a Nov. 7 convenience store robbery, in which several people die, things transpire differently. This turns out to be neither a case of "Rashomon" nor recovered memory. Rather, the film is b.s.-ing you all along. What happens in the first act is shown to be a misrepresentation by the second act, which in turn proves a deliberate distortion in the third.
Like "Blow Up", the protagonist is a photographer, a person who supposedly can capture reality. On the night in question, Sophie (Courteney Cox) and boyfriend Hugh James Le Gros) stop at a corner market. While she waits in the car, Hugh is shot during the robbery.
A while after the murders, Sophie goes to a therapist (Nora Dunn) for help with stress and headaches. One day in the photography class she teaches, a slide taken of the store the night of the robbery turns up in the projector's carousel. She then experiences nightmares about the event that contradict her original story to police. Is she cracking up? Or did some other person witness the murders?
The night of Nov. 7 is shown three times, each with the circumstances and outcome drastically altered. The film also plays fast and loose with chronology, making it unclear whether events take place before or after the murders.
Playing a bewildered if not clueless character, Cox is as convincing as she could possibly be. Le Gros, Dunn, Michael Ealy as Cox's secret lover and Anne Archer as her mother are game, but the story line keeps changing their attitudes and motivations.
Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber is the movie's real heroine, as she dramatically meshes the real with the surreal, creating different looks and emotions for each segment through light and color.
IFC Prods.
PARK CITY -- How annoyed a viewer will get with Greg Harrison's psychological thriller "November" will depend on how many times one has seen movies that play games with reality by tracking back and forth over a single incident, each time providing new and contradictory clues. This InDigEnt production, shot in digital video on a skimpy budget, does show how filmmakers can use light, color and design to push movies into experimental modes of storytelling more intriguing than big-budget thrillers that pay scant attention to style. The problem lies with the story these filmmakers choose to tell.
Benjamin Brand's script never levels with a viewer. Each time you witness the events of a Nov. 7 convenience store robbery, in which several people die, things transpire differently. This turns out to be neither a case of "Rashomon" nor recovered memory. Rather, the film is b.s.-ing you all along. What happens in the first act is shown to be a misrepresentation by the second act, which in turn proves a deliberate distortion in the third.
Like "Blow Up", the protagonist is a photographer, a person who supposedly can capture reality. On the night in question, Sophie (Courteney Cox) and boyfriend Hugh James Le Gros) stop at a corner market. While she waits in the car, Hugh is shot during the robbery.
A while after the murders, Sophie goes to a therapist (Nora Dunn) for help with stress and headaches. One day in the photography class she teaches, a slide taken of the store the night of the robbery turns up in the projector's carousel. She then experiences nightmares about the event that contradict her original story to police. Is she cracking up? Or did some other person witness the murders?
The night of Nov. 7 is shown three times, each with the circumstances and outcome drastically altered. The film also plays fast and loose with chronology, making it unclear whether events take place before or after the murders.
Playing a bewildered if not clueless character, Cox is as convincing as she could possibly be. Le Gros, Dunn, Michael Ealy as Cox's secret lover and Anne Archer as her mother are game, but the story line keeps changing their attitudes and motivations.
Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber is the movie's real heroine, as she dramatically meshes the real with the surreal, creating different looks and emotions for each segment through light and color.
PARK CITY -- How annoyed a viewer will get with Greg Harrison's psychological thriller "November" will depend on how many times one has seen movies that play games with reality by tracking back and forth over a single incident, each time providing new and contradictory clues. This InDigEnt production, shot in digital video on a skimpy budget, does show how filmmakers can use light, color and design to push movies into experimental modes of storytelling more intriguing than big-budget thrillers that pay scant attention to style. The problem lies with the story these filmmakers choose to tell.
Benjamin Brand's script never levels with a viewer. Each time you witness the events of a Nov. 7 convenience store robbery, in which several people die, things transpire differently. This turns out to be neither a case of "Rashomon" nor recovered memory. Rather, the film is b.s.-ing you all along. What happens in the first act is shown to be a misrepresentation by the second act, which in turn proves a deliberate distortion in the third.
Like "Blow Up", the protagonist is a photographer, a person who supposedly can capture reality. On the night in question, Sophie (Courteney Cox) and boyfriend Hugh James Le Gros) stop at a corner market. While she waits in the car, Hugh is shot during the robbery.
A while after the murders, Sophie goes to a therapist (Nora Dunn) for help with stress and headaches. One day in the photography class she teaches, a slide taken of the store the night of the robbery turns up in the projector's carousel. She then experiences nightmares about the event that contradict her original story to police. Is she cracking up? Or did some other person witness the murders?
The night of Nov. 7 is shown three times, each with the circumstances and outcome drastically altered. The film also plays fast and loose with chronology, making it unclear whether events take place before or after the murders.
Playing a bewildered if not clueless character, Cox is as convincing as she could possibly be. Le Gros, Dunn, Michael Ealy as Cox's secret lover and Anne Archer as her mother are game, but the story line keeps changing their attitudes and motivations.
Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber is the movie's real heroine, as she dramatically meshes the real with the surreal, creating different looks and emotions for each segment through light and color.
- 1/27/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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