Customer Reviews

Last Goodbye

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The film lacks some cohesiveness, yet it turns in some fine performances from some new young actors and actresses. Of course, David Carradine and Faye Dunaway, gave polished and intreguing performances. But the most riviting performance came from a new young actress by the name of Sara Stanton. I would recommend watching it just for her. I ended up wishing that the movie would tell us more and more about her character, Jen Bonner.

This film takes several pieces of several lives and slowly shows how they fit together, though not all in order. There are four main characters, a young down-and-out former actor, a young actress with a hit TV show, a young rock star with a hit album, and an underage girl groupie. Each feels unloved by the one or ones they love and is suffering and causing suffering because of this. The film does build, does have forward momentum--the final wind-up is impressively put together. By the end, things wind up tightly enough and make decent sense, though I don't think I completely understood how everything fits. The overall feel is gritty, serious, but with humorous aspects. The script is good, real. The cinematography is very good, the music is strong, the acting is for the most part outstanding, each of the main characters well cast. I was consistently drawn in throughout and will probably want to see it again.

Some of the humor comes in the form of a parody of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, played basically straight, which is to say, with the same kind of tongue-in-cheek that characterized the TV series, and is all the more amusing for being so dead on. There are also scenes from a TV morning show, a radio interview, and a first meeting with a producer, each just slightly exaggerating some of the uncomfortable or absurd points that are common to such things, to humorous effect but often at the same time highlighting the pain apparent in the characters. Much of the film has what would be funny points that play rather black because of the sad state of the characters. But the film isn't really a downer. The characters aren't bad people, and though things don't go well, they don't go as badly as they could. The ending can be regarded as a step towards better things. If we're to take it at face value.

There are minor parts for Faye Dunaway and David Carradine, who do fine, but neither is any better than the rest of the cast, I don't think.

There's a commentary track that appears to be no more than a bunch of subtle and not so subtle gags. I gave up on it after about a half hour, but you might find it amusing.

I really enjoyed watching this film. The whole point is that underneath its gloss and trendy shots, it's about how the need for love drives us all and sometimes down roads we wish we had hadn't driven. The story of four people and how they all intersect isn't as random as it seems and the writer/director (Jacob Gentry) deserves huge credit for showing us all shades of love revolving around two main characters: Agnes and Roland. The movie shows us how a good and real love can go wrong when life happens; we see how the longing for MTV love can be a fantasy gone wrong; we see parental love, unrequited love and most importantly, how love binds us. Each character is fleshed out and not just good or bad. Two characters serve as "seers" even though one isn't really there. I will definitely look for more films by Jacob Gentry. Overall, it was well acted except for the the bar scene near the beginning and there were even some standouts(Clementine Ford, Chad McKnight & Chris Rydell). My only gripe is the whole blantent rip-off of "Buffy the Vampire" thing. The lead character, Agnes, is an actress who plays a vampire slayer in a tv series entitled Southern Gothic. The movie mocks "Buffy" creator and its fans on one hand and yet the movie opens with Agnes in Southern Gothic, ends with another scene of Southern Gothic, and has other scenes interspersed throughout. Although we do learn that this tv series is pivotal and the vignettes correlate to what's going on in the actual movie, I'm not sure why it was another layer added. Does Jacob Gentry secretly admire and envy Joss Whedon? Whatever the case, he certainly owes him royalties... This in no way deterred from the enjoyability of this movie. Great fun to watch and it even has a subtle message. The movie was based on a novel by Patrick Kaye (Last Goobye from Way Down Here) and it made we want to buy the book.