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Conversations With Other Women – 3 /5

By the time I get round to posting this, the film will have been and gone, but what the heck. This is essentially a two-hander following a conversation and subsequent events between Aaron Eckhart (Thankyou for Smoking, The Black Dahlia) and Helena Bonham Carter after they meet at a wedding. It is a barely concealed secret that they used to be married to each other. The film is shot with a grainy look and split screens used to either give another angle or show the couple’s younger selves (Brick’s Nora Zehetner providing an uncanny likeness to Bonham Carter).

There is nothing too original, the split screen has been used better elsewhere and only really pays dividends in a final shot where the images seemingly combine only to emphasise the separation of the characters. However, what there is, is done well. Both stars are on good, entertaining form and seem to relish getting to grips with a more intelligent than average script. The film is dialogue heavy, but as it turns out, that is a good thing. It also fits with the underlying theme of the movie, which concerns the stories they tell each other in order to make sense of/re-invent their pasts and presents. Bonus marks also for one of the best titles of the year.

Wedding Daze – 2.5/5

Comes in at the sillier end of romantic comedies. Man (Jason Biggs from American Pie) proposes to girlfriend, girlfriend (played by a scarily thin actress who makes Keira Knightly look voluptuous) promptly drops dead. Fast forward a year, Biggs, in order to get his best friend off his back, randomly proposes to waitress (Isla Fisher) who even more randomly says yes. There follows a journey of negotiating randy parents, escaped convicts, circus performers, imprisonment and visitations from beyond the grave later, happily ever after happens.

The humour is hit and miss and too often crosses the line into excruciating. However, when it works, its genuinely funny. Biggs, after flirting with more serious matter (Guy X and Woody Allen’s Anything Else), returns to basically playing his American Pie character. Fisher, in her first starring role, adds whole new levels of cuteness to cute. Joe Pantaliano is entertainingly even more manic than usual. Silly, but enough fun to make it just about worth the while.


All in all its been a quiet few weeks movie-wise if you don't like slasher films. Here's hoping either the weather improves or Ocean's Thirteen can liven up the cinema summer