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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fun, quirky romance that makes up for its flaws with charm, January 15, 2003
By A Customer
I loved this movie. The plot is summarized well in the other reviews, but I'll give a quick rundown: a socially awkward, lonely computer animator named Zoe (Robin Tunney), who tries to fill up her alone time by dating men who never call her back, crashes a party of co-workers at a local bar, has too much to drink, gets carjacked by a guy who's been stalking her, runs into and kills a police officer, and ends up under house arrest awaiting her trial, confined to her apartment by an electronic ankle bracelet. It's Zoe's worst fear: being confined with only herself as company. But once alone in her apartment, she transforms from a tentative, clingy woman who looks outside herself for approval into a charming, independent woman who finds her strength within. In the process, she forms a bond with her disabled downstairs neighbor and develops a romance with deputy Bill (perfectly played by Tim Blake Nelson), who comes to tend her ankle bracelet. This romance is the best thing about the movie. In the DVD commentary, the director (Finn Taylor) says the script originally didn't focus as much on the romance, but the chemistry between Tunney and Nelson was so good that he changed the movie to focus more on them. Many reviewers felt that the movie should have focused *completely* on that relationship, and on Zoe's inner development, instead of shifting gears into a thriller in the last 20 minutes, when Zoe runs around San Francisco trying to prove her innocence. This movie was also attacked by several reviewers for being "unrealistic," but let's face it, what movie *is* realistic? To me, the success of a movie rests not on its ability to be "true-to-life," but on whether it creates a cohesive, engaging world and draws you into it, and this movie does that. It's very much a lonely single-chick movie, the kind that when you're depressed you can just curl up and watch it while drinking merlot and eating Duncan Hines chocolate frosting straight from the can. If you're a sucker for movies like "Next Stop Wonderland" or "While You Were Sleeping," give this one a try--it draws you into a lonely young woman's world, invites you to ponder it along with her, and makes you think it can actually be fun and charming to be lonely and bemused about life, as long as you're as cute and gutsy as Robin Tunney or as wisely sardonic as Hope Davis. One of my complaints is that Tunney's transformation is initially sparked by changing her hairdo: one day she's a frizzy-haired frump, the next she's straightened her hair and discovered her inner bombshell. As one reviewer commented, the frizzy-haired Tunney is "Hollywood's idea of an ugly girl": a beautiful girl with glasses on. Thus her personal transformation is too easy, starting as it does from outside. I would like to have seen the same transformation without the hairdo, and without someone with as pretty a face as Tunney. It would have been more challenging, but more satisfying. Finally, the growth arc of Tunney's character isn't depicted all that well (despite Tunney's praise of that arc in interviews). Perhaps they were trying to be subtle: we are intended to simply guess that her growth was produced by all those months of crawling up the air shaft, little by little extending the boundary of her physical world, and at the same time that of her internal world. But we don't *see* that clearly enough; it doesn't unfold smoothly; during the time she's not climbing up the air shaft, she's mainly sitting still on a chair. Right up until the final 20 minutes, she's alternately flirting with Nelson, yelling at him for simply doing his job (there's a bit too much of the victim to her at times), or sniffling to him that she's innocent. The next day, she's suddenly running around the city, tough-talking and strong-arming people to get evidence to clear her name. It would've been more engaging to see her inner strength and confidence develop bit by bit with her trips up the air shaft, and be revealed in clearer ways: for example, if she started earlier (and with more determination) to find evidence to clear her name; found ways to deal with Nelson other than yelling, flirting, or sniffling (for example, if she surprised him with some persuasive argument for her innocence); or showed her new strength by planning an act of generosity for her downstairs neighbor, instead of the other way around. But all that said, it's still a fun hour and a half, and the look and the general mood of the movie sort of make you want to watch it again and again. There are amazing images and endearing scenes you'll remember long after the end. It's a good movie that can charm you into overlooking its various weaknesses.
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DVD ~ Dermot Mulroney
~ Climax Blues Band
DVD ~ James Spader
DVD ~ Joel Edgerton
DVD ~ Peter Coyote
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