MovieChat Forums > It's All About Love (2003) Discussion > It just shows you that a POOR script rui...

It just shows you that a POOR script ruins everything

posted 19 years ago by enchantress_7
21 replies | jump to latest

Ok, I was so looking forward to seeing this film having both Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix in it. I think they are both really talented actors and I love their work.

However, this film was PAINFUL to watch. There were soooooooooo many times I just wanted to shut it off and scream – Why??? How can such a horrible script get produced? I think the initial idea had a lot of potential but it was just executed sooooooooooooo wrong. It just shows you that even the best cast can’t save a horrible story.

[–] h-vadim 19 years ago

A film is like a mirror: when a monkey looks at it no philosopher looks out.

[–] bobdicks 18 years ago

lolthis response. no philosopher is looking out of this movie one way or the other. i'd rather listen to some guy smoke pot and wonder aloud about stuff than watch this music-video-trying-to-be-an-art-movie. best word to describe this movie: vapid.

[–] pinklima 19 years ago

i dont think it was exactly the script. i thought it was more the dialogue. obviously the plot is more then interesting, perhaps since it was written by ppl whose native language isnt english, the dialogue got 'Lost in translation'. lol. on a side note, i hated the movie 'lost in translation'.

i loved the direction, plot, actors in this movie. too bad they didnt hire atleast one writer whose native language was english, and too bad nobody realized it before the film was made.

i watched the movie with a friend, and we both said it was just the dialogue that was so poor. and we wondered how, you could notice if you wrote something like that or directed something like this??? if you have such an interesting concept/story, but such weak perhaps unintresting dialogue, how could you tell? but it makes me happy to know, that maybe the dialogue was weak/unintresting just because it was written by ppl whose native language isnt English.

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I should eat more, or I will end up like Kate Bosworth. Anorexics Inflate!

[–] juliebudtz87 18 years ago

I don't agree at all

It is quite obvious that the script was not written by ppl with english as their native language (although danish ppl are very talented when it comes to speaking english), but I do believe that the way they speak is something which was Vinterbergs intention. The film is not socialrealism, it's an aesthetic and stilistic lovestory which does not portrait reality as the way we perceive it.

I think the actors did a great job and I think the script writers did a great job as well.

The script and the basic idea are very clever, interesting and different. It is Vinterbergs comment upon the future and how this world is slowly decaying. He visualizes this in a fairy tale about love. I adore that.

Using american actors and american setting to make a film with this scandinavian feeling is something I find very nice.

In addition to this, I think Vinterberg has made a film beyond beautiful. He focuses a lot on aesthetics and if you find the dialogue fake in a way, why not focus on the tenderness and beauty of the film.

Watch his other films, cause he is brilliant.

[–] tobyfilms 18 years ago

Couldn't agree more juliebud :-)

[–] ni-cola 18 years ago

- Agreed. It's not about what is said in this film; it doesn't really matter that most of the time it sounds like the actors are reading off the script. Arguably this only adds to the portrayal of the future world as a empty, and cold place, where people have no emotional connection. No?

When everything is so beautiful and rich in texture, colour and atmosphere, this only adds to the emptiness between the people. This then helps the little bit of love, which is left between these two people, to stand out even clearer.

Vinterberg's English is fine, not brilliant, but fine. So no people, don't write this off as being another foreign film with a poor script as a result.

[–] desolare 16 years ago

I couldn't agree more, with you, and JulieBudtz.

Its absolutely clear what Vinterberg is trying to show us with this film.

[–] nyshedevil001 18 years ago

Living in a predominantly Polish neighborhood, I would have to say that the dialogue was right on. I felt like I was in my local grocery store (staffed with mostly Polish people)and that is just how they speak English. If anything, I feel it added a bit of realism to the movie.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I'd like to watch it again without distractions so that I could get a better feel for the story.

[–] shall84 18 years ago

I actually liked the rather wooden dialogue and stiff, strangely-accented deliveries; for me it reinforced the chilly noir atmosphere. But I do wish there had been a _few_ more lines like, "Our calendars are written in different languages."

[–] GoLuongo 18 years ago

But they flipped back and forth between accented and non-accented. Drove me nuts!

[–] Sonfollower 18 years ago

I think what was wrong with this movie, was the editing. If you remember the bed scenes...they had their clothes on then off....then on. When she first looked out and saw the snow...joaquin was naked, or at least on top. Then when they both realize it is snowing, they are fully dressed. Who ever edited this movie was why off........

[–] Thun 18 years ago

It's called style, people.

To judge this movie by common standards of "realism" is to totally miss the point. I speak as a person who hates the Dogme crowd and their efforts; this couldn't be further from that stuff, and I was enthralled almost all the way through. The movie just looks fantastic, including the obvious fake shots. It doesn't matter there's no fog breath. It's all about...

And for the dude who complained about it, "Hello, sir, have you seen that it's snowing?" is like the second best single line in cinema history.

Unfortunately it doesn't have an ending. On the whole, though, very pleasing.

[–] h-vadim 16 years ago

Exactly - it's made to be like a dream. And maybe apart from Tarkovsky's "Mirror" and Myung-se Lee's "M" and Takashi Miike's "Box" this is the film that comes closest to capturing that experience.

[–] irishaspaddyspig 16 years ago

The script needed some judicious editing. Not the words, the scenarios. I have learned to disregard the reference to the loss of gravity at the equator,(people float, animals don't).
The rest of the film has grown on me. I've watch it many times. The love story is touching. The last 5 minutes,heartbreakingly beautiful.

I can accept that it's a personal vision of the future. It's flawed, but interesting.

"a malcontent who knows how to spell"

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] irishaspaddyspig 16 years ago

Right.

"a malcontent who knows how to spell"

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] irishaspaddyspig 16 years ago

? I believe I discussed it. Read the post again.

"a malcontent who knows how to spell"

[–] wdawson-1 15 years ago

still not sure why, but i watched the whole movie. actually couldn't wait for phoenix and danes to die. inane, clumsy, incoherent, scattered. and what was sean penn meant to represent? overall a waste of time.

[–] juxtapose70 15 years ago

I loved this movie. I thought it was symbolic of a dying world where love is swept away too quickly. In the beginning when John mentions the dead man they all have to step over, the man he was with explained; "it's mostly the sad and deptressed. Their hearts just give out and no one knows why."
In the end, when Elena's heart failed (because it had been saddened by their separation) he said to her, "I should have come sooner". It was beautiful to me. And there's so much truth to the idea that when love grows cold, everything dies and gets destroyed.

Sean Penn was the narrator for this symbolism. That is how I viewed it. I didn't understand the clone/girls other than as possible symbols for a "throw away world".. like the one we live in now. If someone can't cut it perfectly, divorce them, get a new one, etc, etc.

This movie moved me on too many levels.

[–] Ambrosia-I 13 years ago

I love your take on it, juxtapose. I also found the film very beautiful and the end was exquisitely moving, but I couldn't explain why half so well as you have done. It is a very strange film indeed, but it's riveting. The encroaching ice age seems to reflect the world's inability to communicate and care; people die because they give up hope; others have to be tied down because there's no longer any substance to keep them grounded. The symbolism of the film seem to me to be both very literal and, at the same time, completely surreal.