Movies-TV

DYNO-MITE

I Aint Jivin this movie rules,Sarah Polley is a underated actress

This movie rocks

Lots of compellinh performances especiallt the goddess Sarah Polley who will be a Superstar one day.This movie proves why indie movies rock

Fascinating story with a few flaws

This was a slow moving but interesting story about a 50 something bohemian photographer named Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea) who is a serial seducer of impressionable young women. His seduction is not really about sex, although that is part of it. Instead, it is more of an emotional seduction that involves his creating a symbiotic mentor/protégé relationship that puts him in control while feeding his ego. His latest conquest is Harper Sloane (Sarah Polley), a recent college grad from a wealthy family who is all set to go to Harvard Law School. Clearly lonely and vulnerable and not used to the attention of men, she falls prey to the charms of this free spirited older man and eschews law school to run off with him and live the artsy life.

Director/writer Audrey Wells, whose best previous writing credits were for "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" does an excellent job bringing this story to the screen in her directing debut. Her shooting of the scenes was sensitively done and brought forth a lot of the emotional elements of the story and the characters. It is clear that this was a labor of love for Wells, but as is often the case, directing one's own work takes away the objectivity about the script leaving most of the plot problems intact.

It is believable that an insecure girl could be lured into a relationship by a charming older man who overtly appreciates her and believes in her abilities. May/September romances (or more aptly in this case April/August) are common and usually happen for all the reasons depicted here. The biggest problem with the story was the introduction of Billie (Gina Gershon), one of Connie's earlier alumni, so early in the story. Billie warns Harper of the specific manipulative lines that Connie uses repeatedly with each of his love interests, almost by rote. She gives great detail right down to the way he touched her and the fact that he calls them all Guinevere.

At that point, Harper does exactly what one might expect, she leaves him. Shortly thereafter, the story loses all credibility as she eagerly goes running back to him, knowing full well that she is being totally and impersonally manipulated. The entire relationship after that waits for an emotional explosion that never comes. The whole thing just sort of withers away with the eventual breakup being no more than a fait accompli. The breakup scene was weak and cowardly, which detracted greatly from the dramatic potential. If Wells had put Billie's scene closer to the end of the story to create the last straw it would have been more effective.

Wells also misses a great opportunity to add fireworks by not emphasizing Harper's relationship with her mother (Jean Smart). There was a natural emotional tension between the two and she was the one character who had complete clarity about the relationship. Finally, without giving too much away, the gathering of the five Connie alumni at the end was a bit goofy and highly implausible given the gravity of the situation. However, Wells does eventually redeem herself with a good ending and some of the best imagery of the film.

Sarah Polley was well cast in this film and exuded the pure naivety of a young woman inexperienced in the ways of love. She was wonderfully awkward and vulnerable and it was very believable that she could fall prey to the ministrations of an older man. Polley has a Winona Ryder quality about her and has excellent potential as an actress. It remains to be seen if she can break out of the role of quirky teen.

Stephen Rea was hopelessly miscast in this role. He didn't have the emotional horsepower to play this character. His acting is somewhat stoic and wooden and this character needed to be charming, passionate and obsessive. The part required an actor more like Michael Caine.

The best performance of the film goes to Jean Smart as Harper's outspoken and gregarious mother. She completely steals the movie with her confrontational scene with Connie, explaining to him why he can't make it with women his own age. She is terrific in every scene she is in and the fortune cookie scene is fantastic.

Overall, I rated this film a 7/10. This film will probably be most appealing to men over 50 and women under 25. None of the flaws were fatal, but the pace was slow and the plot implausible in parts. That detracted from an otherwise engaging story and some very good technical filmmaking.

Very interesting movie with a twist!

Guinevere is a typical story about a 40ish man who falls in love with a girl of 19.Harper Sloane comes from a family of lawyers but she decides that she does not want to follow in her family's shadow. At her sister's wedding she meets Connie Fitzpatrick who is there to take the wedding photos and she becomes infatuated with him after a couple of visits to his studio. Harper then moves in with Connie who tells her that she will have to work at something in order to live with him. He doesn't care what she does painting,sculpting,dance or photography as long as she is doing something artistic. Harper decides to do photography with Connie as her mentor. It is then that they begin their on-again off again affair. I am not going to tell you much more about the plot because I would be giving the whole movie away and you have to see it for yourself! The performances in this film are very good especially by Jean Smart who plays Harper's snobby mother. While the plot can be a little overdramatic here and there I still give it four stars because it keeps you engrossed until the end!

Surprisingly, not as good as the talent should've made it.

Admittedly I had sky-high expectations before watching Guinevere, but expectations are created to be met...and Guinevere falls short, given the track records of all involved.

The director is Audrey Wells, who wrote the witty, lively The Truth about Cats and Dogs. The cast includes Neil Jordan's champion, the sublime Stephen Rea; future major-league actress Sarah Polley, capable of both edginess and vulnerability; and Jean Smart, perfect as an upper-class matron of staggering viciousness.

What went wrong?

A precious script that too often lapses into references to art and anecdotes, for one. A high-mindedness that drags like dead weight, resulting in a sickeningly cheesy dream-sequence ending. Some poor supporting turns by the unversatile, pouty Gina Gershon, a shamefully melodramatic Grace Una, and a lacklustre Sandra Oh, stuck with a minute role.

The two main characters created in this film are truly memorable, thanks to fascinating turns by Rea and Polley. Polley captures her character's tentativeness and bursts of personality beautifully, and Rea is a marvel -- first cleverly straddling the line between heartfelt artist and pedophilic exploiter, then showing off a touching vulnerability when Connie's afflictions start catching up with him.

So why the low grade? The ending, which romanticizes a relationship that was already powerfully romantic, making the delicious subtext a sugary piece of blatant advertisement; disgusting overuse of music; too many winks at "post-modern", MTV-influenced technique (the jump-cut is one of the most overrated devices in post-'90s film). Guinevere lapses too easily and too often into that dreaded situation of "too much of a good thing", and ends up beating many of its own strengths to death.

Oscar overlooked this one

I cant believe how incredibly good and convincing sarah polley was in this.After seeing GO! I thought she couldnt act,boy was I wrong.her performance was A list as was the rest of the cast The story and look was realistic.What can you say other than DYNOMITE!

Great Film, Great Performance!

It would be all too easy for Guinevere to have been a cheap lolita sex film... But the film stays away from the expected, keeping things both clean and realistic at the same time. Polley is the biggest surprise, delivering a tour de force performance. I see a great future for her.

A great, engaging film

I got to see Guinevere about 2 months ago in the theater and found it to be an uplifting, inspiring, and refreshing story. Sara Polley is a great actress - who also lends her incredible voice for the background vocals to some of the music in the movie.

Guinevere is about an older photographer be-friending and falling in love with Sarah Polley, who is a teenager. It's a movie about two people coming together during a certain period in their life - regardless of how old they are.

I found the movie to drag on a little longer than it could have - but it's still definitely worth seeing!

Sarah Polley is Hot

What an incredible movie the story was great, THe acting was supersweet an the lead was Shaggarific Baby Yeah!

interesting

This is an OK movie. The story is good. The main weak point of this film is that the casting for the caracter of Harper and that cheesy final scene. This movie could of being so much better. But I enjoyed it anyway. I found it to be quite entartaining.

what the...?

After renting and then watching this "film" I felt the need to warn as many people as possible about this movie. Don't rent it! Don't watch it! What a waste of time! I remember this movie coming out in theatres. It looked interesting, but alas, it was not in theatres long enough for me to go see it! So I rented it instead. This movie is weird, pointless, and its attempts at humor are either non-existent or just lost on me. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time on this one! Actually, the cheesy scene at the very end was pretty funny. I don't think it was supposed to be, but it was the only thing even remotely funny about this movie. For those of you who have seen it, I think you know what I am talking about, the scene in which Connie walks down the hallway and sees all of his old girlfriends. If you haven't seen the movie and don't know what I am talking about, be grateful!

A sad movie with its O my gosh sceams.

My thought it why did she keep on staying with him when she new he had done the same thing with all the other girls. He took pictures of there nude bodys and called them all Guinevere And set them up in some kind of art class and what not and wanted them to stay with him or wanted to try to maintain a 5 year relasion ship. But no girl stayed with him that long. After they new but if they did now they never left him at least not for a while. But on how the movie is well I do think the acting was a little bit blah by some people and more shiney by others. The story did have its fine moments so to speak. On a scale of 1-5 I give it a 4 1/2 4 and a hafe. I say if you first pick is gone then choose this movie.

Worth watching

I had the unbelievable good fortune to stumble upon Guinevere, starring Sarah Polley and Stephen Rea, this week. I really enjoyed this movie.

Polley plays Harper, a young, insecure woman on the brink of attending Harvard Law School. At her sister's wedding, she meets Connie Fitzpatrick, an aging wedding photographer. He strikes up an easy rapport with her, guessing quickly that she's not cut out for law school and flattering her with a compliment or two. Connie also slyly accommodates her request not to be photographed in the traditional wedding shots, but he surprises her with a beautiful portrait that he took (featuring only her) in an unguarded moment. When Harper visits Connie to thank him for the portrait, he invites her to stick around with him and learn about . . . art.

Before she knows it, Harper is chucking the idea of law school and moving in with her new lover. The two seem oddly happy together, though Harper's own low self-esteem and Connie's need for adulation are more than a little self-destructive. Harper soon discovers that she's one in a string of Connie's many "pupils" - all young, all insecure, all taken in by his talk of art and his Irish accent. Connie has fed them all the same lines, tried to inspire all of them to create art, called them all his "Guinevere." Despite that, however, Harper decides Connie's a better bet than her own dysfunctional family of backbiting lawyers. As the viewer knows from the start, Connie and Harper must eventually have a sad parting.

The film comes full circle four years later, when news that Connie has been stricken with illness reaches his former loves. The women all gather (without malice, no less) to say goodbye, and, strangely enough, most of them have gone on to become accomplished artists - painters, photographers, etc.

I thought this movie was very interesting and very well-done. The characters are not always likable - Harper, jealous of her older sister's close relationship with her father, runs to Connie as a substitute; Connie, though an excellent photographer, is also an old lech with too much of a taste for girl-flesh; Harper's family is made out to be an intelligent but thoroughly hatable group whose main characterization is their vocation - law.

Rea and Polley hold the film deftly in ther capable hands, and their performances are wonderful. I'm beginning to really love Polley. I thought she was stunning in My Life Without Me and I LOVED her in The Weight of Water. Jean Smart provides a biting turn as Harper's mother.

Though there is a little nudity, some sexual content, and plenty of profanity in this one, I thought it was very much worth watching.

A Must See If Crushing On Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley fans, especially ones going all the way back to "Ramona", are generally big-time "Guinevere" (1999) fans simply because it is the film in which she peaked physically. And Director Audrey Wells picked up on this during casting, seeing in Polley (at that time of her life) someone physically perfect to play her heroine Harper Sloane. Wells needed a young woman who simply glowed in front of the camera, whose face looked better "without" make-up, and who projected both innocence and restlessness. With Polley she also got a bonus, one of the most talented actresses of her generation.


In this sense Wells resembles Alfred Hitchcock, a director with an uncanny ability to identify actresses at the one moment of their lives when they are physically perfect for a particular role. Sylvia Sidney in "Sabotage", Nova Pilbeam in "Young and Innocent", and Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca" come to mind.

Wells, who also wrote ''The Truth About Cats and Dogs'', captures that moment in some young women's lives (yes, the film could be considered a feminist statement) when they are able to break free of expectations and programming. The Harper Sloane character seems so authentic and the portrayal so lacking in glib cynicism that it most likely has a lot of autobiographical elements.


Harper is tracking along toward Harvard Law School when she meets Cornelius Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), a middle-aged Irish artist who has been hired to photograph her sister's wedding. His well-practiced seduction technique and irreverent world-view causes a major attitude adjustment and she abandons her career track to become his protégé and lover.

The story is told from Harper's point of view and the viewer soon learns along with her that this is not the traditional "Pygmalion" scenario. While not exactly a rogue and a roué, "Connie" is a compulsive Henry Higgins who has repeatedly played this game with repressed young women. He goes into these relationships with a five-year time limit.

Consistent with the POV factor, Harper's story is told with intelligence and compassion, with a lot of emphasis on the fragility of a first love and the pain of a trust betrayed. The film's feminist slant is revealed not so much by what is explicitly shown but by its failure to bring any dimensionality to Connie's character. No clues are provided to explain his aversion to a long-term commitment, Harper discovers that his promises are empty ones but she never learns the roots of his insecurities.


Although Polley's best scenes are those with Carrie Preston, who plays her best friend and confidante; the most entertaining scenes are those with her mother (Jean Smart), an unstated version of Susan's mother on "Seinfeld". The dysfunctional nature of Harper's family and her mother's unfulfilled life are slowly and somewhat comically revealed, but the bottom line is that her mother is sincerely trying to shield her daughter from mistakes.


Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Heart-breakingly Real

I'd highly recommend this film to anyone, but especially to any
female artist, musician, actor who has come of age. This isn't
so much about a May-December romance: it is about the student/mentor bond which can be incredibly strong and intense,
and an aging artist who through Harper, is trying to hold onto
his past youth and the artistic potential he once had.

This could have been such a sappy movie, but the acting and writing kept that from happening. I agree with another reviewer - it was NOT predictable, and the acting was so real.


Sarah Polley is great, but Stephen Rea absolutely broke my heart.
These characters were not romanticized: they were multi-dimentional, human. There was good and not so good about them.
Connie Fitzgerald did manipulate and seduce Harper, but it was also clear that he really loved her. It was clear as well, that Harper knew what she was getting herself into and it was her choice ultimately.


My only reservation was that some of the family members (father,
sister) were one-dimensional to the point where it was hard to
believe. Perhaps that was how Harper saw them, or perhaps that
was done to set-off the volatile emotional intensity of the mother (Jean Smart, who was also good), and the repressed/about-to-emerge artistic intensity of Harper.


I am a die-hard Stephen Rea fan after seeing this film.

A film for the artists

At first glance this film seems like a bad American TV movie, it is certainly shot like one. However 10 mins in you start to realise that this film has a little bit more going for it than that. The film follows the story of a girl in her early 20s and her journey into adulthood. On the way she falls for an older man, battles her parents and gets more than a glimce into the life of an artist. This film is perfect for anyone struggling with artistic asperations, think "American Beauty" meets "Lost in Translation." That's all you need to know, now go buy it!

Given the cast I am shocked there is no awe in this one

The best scene in "Guinevere" belongs to Jean Smart and it is also the scene that exposes the fatal flaw in this 1999 drama from writer-director Audrey Wells ("Under the Tuscan Sun"). Smart plays Deborah Sloane, who has discovered that her 20-year-old daughter Harper (Sarah Polley) is shacked up with Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), a photograph and drunk (not always in that order) who is older than Deborah. Harper is the latest in a series of young girls that Connie has taken under his wing as his "Guinevere," but Deborah does not know about all that. What she knows is that someone older than she is happens to be having sex with her daughter, and Deborah has a theory as to why this is happening and why Connie does not like women his own age. When she asks what Harper has that she does not, her answer is "awe." Harper can look at Connie with awe, whereas Deborah, who has been around, cannot. The problem is that neither can we.

You have to understand that Deborah is a rather unsympathetic figure in this film, destroying a dinner with her family by her insistence that they read the fortunes in their fortune cookies and add "in bed" to the end. But she is devastating right about Connie and that is why this film does not work for me. I have no problem with the idea that a story about an artist who goes through a series of young women who act as his muses and protégés. We meet most of the rest of these Guineveres during the course of the film and some of them are played by Gina Gershon, Sandra Oh and Jasmine Guy. But what we do not get to see is any evidence that Connie is any sort of artistic genius. There are some decent black & white photographs but basically you have to take the film's position that he is worth of emulation let alone awe. The most demonstrative talent Connie shows in the film is to (euphemism warning) make her extremely happy while she is still dressed (okay, not so much a euphemism as being extremely vague).

There is even less of an idea in the film that Harper would be a worthy protégé, or muse for that matter. This is rather odd because as an actress Sarah Polley usually makes her characters seem pretty smart (not Julia Stiles smart but certainly in the Jodie Foster range), and here she only comes across as clueless without a sense of direction. Connie must look better to Harper than her family or going to Harvard, but that is not really saying much, and when we see her at the end of the film and she is clearly a confident young woman, there is no real reason to give Connie the credit. So I cannot help but think that if Connie wants to do the Svengali routine, he could do better than Harper. If I am thinking that, then clearly "Guinevere" is not working despite the solid cast. The fault is not in the performances, but in the script.


Admittedly the problem can be that I am of the wrong gender to appreciate a film that is essentially a female coming of age story. Certainly that is an almost microscopic movie genre in comparison to male coming of age stories (which might actually cover most movies being made today now that I stop and think about it). I also have a problem with the idea that given a choice between Jean Smart and Sarah Polley (abstracted to the general level of a woman in her forties versus a woman in her twenties) the choice is obvious, and that would be because I know what the former has that the latter does not. But the main complaint remains that while I might be able to buy Harper and Connie are lovers I cannot accept them as student and teacher, and ultimately that is what is supposed to make "Guinevere" more than just another older man/younger woman movie, even if it is told from her perspective.

Like Harper's mother, Mrs Sloane, I too, am without awe.

This movie is the male-fantasy of every photographer who has ever picked up a camera in hopes of bedding a bevy of pretty girls.

a real treasure

Many have either misunderstood or overlooked this gem. If only Hollywood had the brains and/or balls to put out such gems. I loved this movie and could easily watch it many times over. The dialog was intelligent, piercingly truthful. Bravo to the screenwriter! All of the actors: Stephen Rea, Sarah Polly, Jean Smart, Gina Gerson gave compelling, strong performances.

"Guinevere" is the nickname given by Stephen Rea's character (Connie), an alcoholic bohemian type way past his prime, to his significantly younger female companions. See the King Arthur and Guinevere analogy? You see the relationship fraught with the parasitic and symbiotic moments. Jean Smart, who played Guinevere's mom, gave an amazing monolog dissecting the nature of such a relationship.

For those reviewers who said that this film was unrealistic; I disagree. Anyone who has ever found oneself fascinated by inappropriate, older lovers at some point in one's life will understand this film. Some of my friends and I have been "Guinevere" for our own reasons, and we saw the emotional truth in this film.

No secrets here.

I haven't seen Rea since his role in "don't reveal the secret!" _Crying Game_, although I've heard that he did well in _Still Crazy_. _Guenevere_, though, explores an odd mentor-lover relationship between starving artist Rea and blue-blood, WASPy Polley. The age difference here wasn't the only issue, oddly enough--rather it was the strange turns that inevitably develop between people who knowingly enter a relationship where tutoring is an intended part of the romance. Rea's artist has a long history of shacking up with young women and turning them into "true" artists, be they painters, sculptors, dancers, or in Polley's case, photographers. And although I normally would balk at the willingness with which these women handed themselves over to Rea's well-worn lines and drunken philosophies, _Guenevere_ managed to avoid the squeamishness that I feel, for example, whenever I see Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones together. Be sure to pay attention to Jean Smart's dead-on analysis of daughter Polley and Rea's relationship; it's eloquent and brutal.