The rave reviews made me expect more from this film. It was clunky and, at times, highly artificial and stagey -- I wouldn't have minded the stageyness except for the endless reviews claiming it was the first honest depiction of how Americans lived, etc., etc. Ebert's review, for instance, sounds the trumpets because this film is the first time that our American way of life is depicted on film.
Our way of life? The characters are boring middle-management businessmen and traveling salesmen -- the woman are housewives and prostitutes -- and there is almost no American life in this film whatsoever. The scenes are interesting and well-done, but they are staged arguments. The salesmen hang out with prostitutes and -- and tell each other limericks? Did no one have a hi-fi or a radio in this world? It's bizarre and unrealistic.
However, taking it as a bizarre and unrealistic film, this is a good film. It dramatizes the vacancy of middle-class white culture, largely by showing scene after scene in which vapid middle-class white people have empty and meaningless conversations. This does not prove that life is meaningless in general, however. It only proves that middle-management and sale staff do not find fulfilling lives when they hang out getting drunk with prostitutes, with whom they do not have sex. It's all a little odd. Watch it, but be warned.
Our way of life? The characters are boring middle-management businessmen and traveling salesmen -- the woman are housewives and prostitutes -- and there is almost no American life in this film whatsoever. The scenes are interesting and well-done, but they are staged arguments. The salesmen hang out with prostitutes and -- and tell each other limericks? Did no one have a hi-fi or a radio in this world? It's bizarre and unrealistic.
However, taking it as a bizarre and unrealistic film, this is a good film. It dramatizes the vacancy of middle-class white culture, largely by showing scene after scene in which vapid middle-class white people have empty and meaningless conversations. This does not prove that life is meaningless in general, however. It only proves that middle-management and sale staff do not find fulfilling lives when they hang out getting drunk with prostitutes, with whom they do not have sex. It's all a little odd. Watch it, but be warned.