Marie and Bruce (2004)

The Worst Film Ever

Perfectly adorable

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Still can not believe I managed to see this movie without falling asleep. I think it was because it contained some traditional Portuguese music, which gives it an exotic and unusual touch. At the beginning of the movie I thought that Laurie Anderson would have anything to do with it, the music of Mark De Gli Antoni and some of the text recalls her albums! I noticed that the Art Direction is made by someone with a Portuguese name which may explain the presence of "fado" (the traditional Portuguese music). Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick give their best in these crazy, unusual and pointless roles in a movie full of pointless and pretentious scenes and narrative solutions. I imagine the authors with a glass in their hands at any party full of New York intellectuals saying that the public is ignorant and does not understand a work of art like this... Who knows?

When I get to Purgatory, they'll come across the fact that I saw this film, and I'll go right the front of the line to the pearly gates. More likely, construction of an escalator has just started, anticipating all the people who died before they finished watching the show.Spoiler alert: I loved the efforts everyone made to put this together. The Golden Retriever totally stole the show. Ms. Moore, Mr. Broderick, Jimmi Simpson (was that him?!) and regarding everything else, Wally Shawn is nothing but superb. But if Woody Allen re-wrote "The English Patient", casted it with the Monty Python crew and had it directed by David Lynch, it would be pretty much the same as this movie. Inconceivable.

If you are expecting the usual Hollywood pulp then forget this one. Much more in the style of Fellini or other abstract/surrealistic European directors. It is ostensibly a day in the life of a couple in New York. But is it? There are two primary characters who speak their innermost thoughts. Be warned, this is very graphic at times. This is overlaid with the banal chatter from the other people we encounter through the day. But is it actually one woman's thoughts and is the man in her imagination? Or is it the man's thoughts and fantasies? An intriguing movie that operates at a different level of consciousness than usual. Based on a stage play, which shows. It would have been even more gripping as a play. Acting and direction are all superb. Stay with it, it is worth it. It will haunt you for days after.

Wallace Shawn, the author of "Marie and Bruce", who wrote the original play in which this film is based on, is a man whose work in the theater leaves a lot to be desired. I don't wish anyone the experience we had with a play he co-wrote with a brother and that was seen at the Mineta Lane Theater in New York about three years ago, in which the audience kept leaving the performance because it was insufferable. This same quality can be said about this adaptation of yet another one of his works for the theater.Directed by Tom Cairns, who also translated the material for the screen, shows us a couple of misfits that have been together far too long and would have been better off dissolving their marriage some time ago. The main attraction for watching the picture was Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick, both great actors that put in a brave appearance to be in front of the camera playing these people. One wonders why hasn't Marie left Bruce a long time before? It's easier to see why Bruce has stuck to the situation because he doesn't have much to offer anyone else in her right mind.The film can infuriate would be viewers who would not have enough patience to sit right through it.