Town & Country (2001)

Wonderful character development!

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One needs to recognize all the problems and burdens ensued by the cast and crew of Peter Chelsom's Town & Country and evoke some kind of sympathy to the final product. What began as a medium-budget comedy drama turned into a costly and inconsistent financial failure that financially damaged a studio and plunged a great deal of actors into obscurity following its release. Town & Country began as a film that was due to be a fairly quick shoot during the summer of 1998 for a release in the middle of the 1999 year. Between actor Warren Beatty's demand for many takes of each scene he was in and unsatisfied reactions to screenwriter Michael Laughlin's original ending to the film, Town & Country saw itself being developed, or more or less made up, as it went along, with production frequently stalling due to an incomplete script. When a majority of the cast had to attend to prior commitments, being that the film's shoot went well beyond schedule, the full cast couldn't be reunited for a full year, leaving a great deal of time and shelf-wear to accumulate on the film. Following various reshoots in 2000, and a rewrite of more than half the script by Graduate screenwriter Buck Henry, Town & Country finally saw itself released in theaters to record low numbers. It wound up losing over $100 million, combining a production cost that ballooned past any and all predictions and eventual marketing and distribution rights.The film remains a curious piece of history for its checkered production history, along with being the last time Warren Beatty was seen in a film. The final product is a lot more watchable than one would expect, moving with a great deal of energy and having a slew of great performers to halfway mask the shoddy material. However, Town & Country shamelessly bears the fact that its production was a mess from the get-go, appearing very disjointed, especially after about the hour mark, when the film takes one baffling turn after another. On top of everything else, the film finds itself uncertain of when and how to be funny, with certain scenarios sneaking by with no payoff, some with minimal payoff in the way of verbal banter, and others desperately trying to obtain a laugh with slapstick.We focus on Porter Stoddard (Warren Beatty), a New York architect living in a lavish home in the Hamptons, married to Ellie (Diane Keaton), a successful interior designer, for twenty-five years. One day, their good friend Mona (Goldie Hawn) informs them that she wants a divorce from her antique-shopowner husband Griffin (Garry Shandling), Porter's best friend, after catching him taking what appeared to be a redheaded woman to a motel. However, the redhead in question is a cross-dressing male, to no ones knowledge but Griffin. Furthermore, this causes a certain restlessness in Porter that he decides to act on, engaging in an affair with a beautiful young cellist named Alex (Nastassja Kinski). When Ellie discovers Porter is cheating, she is beside herself, leaving both him and Griffin to venture out to Porter's vacation home in Sun Valley for a brief retreat, resulting in predictable hijinks and locale craziness.Town & Country forgoes any kind of presumed sociological investigation as to why and how men cheat versus the reasons and methods women use to cheat in favor of rather unremarkable comedy. Despite bearing a cast of proved greats, the film wades in the water most of the time, cycling through a random array of jokes, some the driest of dry wit, others the dumbest of dumb slapstick, in hopes to obtain some kind of reaction out of the audience. This glaring inconsistency is only furthered when the film takes a turn for the inane in its third act, becoming more about situational comedy and sitcom-style gags that it feels more like a scrapped pilot for a Fox program than a feature-length film.At first, Town & Country wants to play a bit more dignified, almost seeming like a quaint, British comedy of manners. However, it rapidly descends into the worst kind of American comedy, which involves a maximum number of allegedly funny antics but a frighteningly minimal number of actual laughs. What winds up being more surprising is that despite all of its narrative issues, this film is never contemptible or even downright bad. It's sloppy and wears its problems like a messy child, but it moves with a swift amount of zeal and disposable energy. Beatty and Shandling manage to cook up something in the way of amiable chemistry at times, and Keaton finds herself in a role that, despite shortchanging her character's opinions and emotions, seems to catch her in a lively, fun mood.To see a film like this bear the hefty pricetag it does and the mainstream release it mustered is nothing but a surprise, even fourteen years later. This is not the kind of film that's likely to end up on the biggest box office bombs ever list, but more like a medium budget comedy drama that scored mediocre numbers upon release and went on to be forgettable cable fare. Town & Country bears a lot more notable features than many films of its kind, and despite them being mostly for the wrong reasons, there's an amiable quality to this film I can't shake; it's the reason my review is about two or three stars higher than it probably should be.Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling, Goldie Hawn, Nastassja Kinski, Andie MacDowell, Jenna Elfman, and Charlton Heston. Directed by: Peter Cheslom.

Picked this thing up at the library, a CD, free, no rental fees (thank God). I'd just "watched" another movie on one computer while working on another, the movie even if intended as background noise catching my attention, my work finally lain aside as I realized the movie was absolutely delightful. I then slipped Town and Country into the CD drive of my background noise computer, got back to work for a few minutes, wasn't quite certain why the sensation crawling up and down my skin was something like finger nails drawn across a chalk board, finally realized that Town and County in my background noise computer was screeching and prickling to extremes I couldn't previously have imagined possible.

Sometimes, the majority is absolutely, dead-on correct, and in this case, the majority had it nailed.This movies has "too many cooks" written all over it, *right from the opening credits*. Three producers and three executive producers? Still, they needn't fear--there's plenty of blame to go around.One is not supposed to include spoilers in a review--but it's your time that will be spoiled if you make the mistake of watching this fiasco.Even if I could summarize this mess in 1,000 words, you wouldn't believe me. It makes "The First Wives Club" seem like "Citizen Kane". The plot, such as it is, involves two long-time married couples who play nice together but who are hopelessly bungling their marriages. As if anyone cares. And just when you think it can't get any worse or less coherent, it does. And does. And does.I had to wonder whether this movies was "The Producers" for real--maybe they oversold this turkey by 10,000% and kept the proceeds after it dive-bombed like C. Wade McCluskey at Midway.

Warren Beatty is one of those Hollywood icons that has had an inconsistant career. For every Bonnie and Clyde he has made, he has also made Ishtar (which I think is better than this movie). This movie is by far his worst. It feels like a desperate attempt by Beatty to make him feel young by having him sleep around with so many women. The whole cast feels lost in this movie. The characters are all unlikable, especially Beatty's. Why would I sit through a "comedy" where we don't want to be around these people? The usually charming Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton are rather shrill in this movie. I say read articles about this movie's troubled production. I think that story would be up there with the story of "Heaven's Gate," "Ishtar," "Bonfire of the Vanities," and "Waterworld" as the behind the scenes story is more interesting than the movie itself.