Appropriate Behavior (2015)

Well Deserved Praise

Truly Dreadful Film

just watch it!

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I was excited to see this indie and for a low budget film in NYC it is quite well done. Being that is was a Sundance film I was expecting something really revelatory. Unfortunately it really wasn't. It took a long time to get going. The whole first half of the film was essentially exposition in the form of complaining. Nothing was really happening to the characters. They weren't doing or experiencing anything. Instead we learn the characters history as she complains about losing her girlfriend to friends and deals with her family dynamic. While none of that is bad per say, it certainly wasn't that engaging.The film picks up speed after that and we get to see our lead actually experience things. However the star/writer/director utilizes flashbacks to tell the tale of how she got here, but the cuts backward and forward have no style, they are just cuts. So the film feels awkward and you get confused as to where you are in time too easily. Maybe it was intentional, as the lead is really off kilter as her life is put in shambles. But for this viewer, it didn't really work. You always eventually figure out where the timeline is, but it takes a while into each new scene to know. There are many ways to make flashbacks and jumping around in time work for an audience, but none of them are used and therefore it's all just basic editing and cutting and it feels clunky.In conclusion, this is a competent first feature. You have to commend anyone who finishes a feature and does so competently. It isn't a perfect movie, but what is? It could have used some more work with the script and structure. Visually it's fine, but again not a revelation in indie cinematography. Can't really fault them for that though, as you only have just so many locations and it is mostly people talking. If you get too artsy with that it can be detrimental to the simple story being told. If you like indies and new filmmakers you could definitely do worse, but you can also definitely do better. For other films in this vein, millennial, edgy indie, OBVIOUS CHILD is far stronger.

I make an effort not to know too much about a film before I see it. That helps me have an experience less tainted by expectations, but it can also lead me to silly snap judgments that are dead wrong. After a few minutes I'd decided that Desiree Akhavan's Appropriate Behavior was just another in a long string of low budget 20- something self-involved dramedies I've seen in the last couple of years. But by the end I realized that Akhavan had taken that trope, and run her own unique and very funny spin on it. And the humor was a big part of what made it special. This movie was flat out funny. It wasn't afraid of being absurd or larger than life, or actively witty. It was intensely human and touching at times, but it also had great comic timing. In that respect Ahkavan's cinematic view of life and relationships in New York has more in common with Woody Allen circa Annie Hall and Manhattan than most mumblecore we've grown used to. She also created a unusually lovable (if self-sabotaging) main character for herself in Shirin; a bi-sexual young Iranian woman still in the closet to her parents, and attempting to recover from a painful breakup. Shirin doesn't really fit in anywhere. Because she's bi, lesbians (including the woman who broke her heart) view her with suspicion, assuming she's 'just visiting' relationships with women. Her parents keep waiting for her to meet a nice boy. She feels estranged from the Iranian-American culture she grew up with, but she's not as self-consciously hip and cool as the hipster poseurs she's surrounded by. And she has a knack for making some comic but awful life decisions, from a painfully failed threesome, to a gig teaching film-making to disinterested 5 year olds. This is a rueful and smart film about how screwed up and alone we all are… and yet how sweet life is in it's sad and silly way. It's an impressive calling card for Akhavan, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.Follow up -- I saw this again, sharing it with some friends, and found it only grew on me. I was even more touched by the sweet heart at the middle of the comedy.

I'm not one for lengthy reviews. I thought it was an interesting slice of life. Pretty close to reality for a gal of this age in NYC. Like the rest of us, this character is just trying to figure it all out. She's flawed in a number of ways and watching her try and just make it through the day is mildly uncomfortable and usually quite funny.A lot of these reviews are calling this a "hipster" or "shallow" film and I have to disagree. In fact, I don't think these people know what a hipster really is because this movie doesn't depict that at all. If anything, it's more about the lost generation of GEN Y. Those of us who are too old to be hip and too young to have truly lived in the grunge life. The generation that should probably have it figured out by now, but we don't. And that's okay. The title character, Sherin, is exactly that. It didn't strike me as the kind of movie that was supposed to leave you feeling like a new person with a whole new outlook on life. It was just one girl's well told story.

"Appropriate Behavior" had all the ingredients I look for in an indie movie. It had characters on the margins of society in Shirin, a bisexual young woman living in New York City and of Iranian descent. It involved locations I will never know well, the aforementioned New York City as seen by the young and tragically hip. It explores a culture of which I'm not a part, that of the young bisexual/gay/lesbian/transgender person living in a big city.Etc. etc. etc.I was all ready to enjoy the heck out of this film at the Key West Film Festival in November 2014. I even skipped another movie that my group was attending and which sounded great. All so I could see something I normally wouldn't have seen in the theaters.I wish I'd gone with my group. Even worse, I managed to talk someone out of going with me instead of with the others and so I felt bad about steering her wrong.While the set up was all there, the execution sure wasn't. The main character truly only seemed interested in her own love life and gave no thought, nor screen time to anything else. For instance, her brother the doctor seemed to have an interesting side plot going on, but the movie never seemed interested in doing more than teasing the viewers. The main character's coming out to her conservative parents was hinted about and teased, but then given all the pomp and attention of a wet noodle going down the drain.Even worse, the main character was supposed to have a lead-in-to-the-third-act epiphany that led to her making changes and sowing the seeds for a happy ending. After our showing ended, the folks in my theater all talked about the movie and none of us had any clue about what the epiphany was supposed to be. Nor could we understand why or how the main character effected the change necessary for that happy ending.So many wasted ideas, so little fleshing out done. In the end, there was not enough reason for us to care.I gave this a five because I thought the acting and cinematography were relatively professional. Too bad neither were given enough substantial plot nor complications to help them live up to their potential.