Friends with Money

DVD review from guest reviewer Jonathan L.

Friends with Money

Just released on DVD, you'd think this movie would have something going for it. You'd be wrong. With four solid female leads (Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and the lovely Jennifer Aniston) I thought I'd at least see some decent acting, but first-time director Nicole Holofcener (who also wrote this lame excuse of a movie - that should have been a warning sign), managed to drive this straight into the ground. Here's the plot: four women are friends. Three of them are married. They each have their own problems. They talk about their problems, sometimes to each other. Yeah, that's it. No snappy dialogue; no outstanding performances (although McDormand is the strongest of the four); none of the things that can save an otherwise mediocre film (Violence, Nudity, or Special Effects).

Oh yeah - here's the moral: everybody has their own problems. Mind blowing revelation, huh? Granted, I don't care much for these "I've got a bad case of middle-age angst" movies, but not even Jennifer Anniston dressed in a French Maid's Costume having sex could save this. I'm still trying to figure out how this was allowed to open the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Maybe they show the bad films first so everything else will seem really good in comparison. Or maybe Holofcener was this year's darling. Remember what happened to those guys who made Blair Witch Project? Yeah, me neither.

I should have known better than waste my time on this since I didn't even remember it coming out at the theatre - that's another warning sign. My wife did cry (maybe because it was so bad) although don't read too much into that. Commercials make her tear up. I told her if she keeps putting this kind of crap in the Netflix cue, I'm taking over.

Judgment? Don't Bother. You'd be better off spending the 88 minutes working on your own problems.