Word: men
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...unbelievably sweet that John Krasinski put his blood, sweat, and presumably, profits from The Office into writing and directing a film adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. That may sound patronizing, but having watched this film twice now, knitting together the gossamer strands of plot while searching for a profound, literary point that proved too delicate to find with the naked eye - his generosity of intent is really the main impression that remains. He read, he loved, and unfortunately, he did not conquer...
...also has a starring role as the main hideous man, feels a deep connection to the book, one of three story collections Wallace published in his too-short lifetime. While taking a playwriting class at Brown University, Krasinski participated in a stage reading of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and he says the experience made him want to be an actor. All of us who enjoy Krasinski's work as Jim Halpert, the clever, mischievous, solidly good guy he plays on The Office can be grateful to Wallace for that. (See 10 Questions with John Krasinski...
...screenplay, which dances with abstraction, Krasinski created a new character, Sara Queen (Julianne Nicholson, star of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and indie films such as Flannel Pajamas and Tully). Sara is a graduate student studying feminism. In a number of stagy, self conscious scenes, Sara interviews with men in a professional setting - behind a desk, with microphone and tape recorder - and then listens in on conversations between men in more public places, restaurants, apartment buildings, parties and such. In the film's last scene, we find out that she's studying the impact of feminism, although the interactions...
...Cannavale uses his amputated arm to sucker women into bed. Dominic Cooper is a fast talking undergrad, who employs the victim defense to improve his grade. In a gleeful little sequence, Josh Charles gives the same speech five times over to break up with different women. The less hideous men, the ones who describe being actually touched by women, like Krasinski and Christopher Meloni (whose bit feels inspired by In the Company of Men) come across as lost and rather foolish boys...
...hopes not, Professor Adams, although here? Yes, they do sound shallow, and that's painful for anyone who believes men have more dimensions than hideousness. Wallace was a writer who pieced together such complicated crazy quilts of words that you had to take his essays and prose in slowly, inch by inch (or in the case of me and Infinite Jest, absorb over the course of a leisurely decade. Or two). You hope for that same richness in Krasinski's film. Instead I found myself thinking of those man-on-the-street interviews Sex and the City used during...