State and Main (2000)

Sick Product of a Sick System

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Director Walt Price (William H. Macy) finds his new shooting location in Waterford, Vermont with the needed old mill after the previous small New Hampshire town made too many demands. Then he discovers the mill had burned down in 1960. Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is adapting his work and is forced to rewrite. His fan Annie Black (Rebecca Pidgeon) owns the local book store. She breaks up with Doug Mackenzie (Clark Gregg) who tries to bring down the production. Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker) refuses to go topless for the movie. Leading man Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) chases after local teen Carla (Julia Stiles). Studio producer (David Paymer) comes into town to fix the problems.Something about every one of these characters annoyed me. First of all, this cast is stacked. In a way, it's too stacked. Even the yokel locals are Hollywood veterans. It doesn't feel natural. Julia Stiles looks too old for what the character is suppose to represent. She does not look underage. She's young and pretty. Unless she's pregnant, there is no real scandal. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great actor but his character is too naive. His cluelessness seems too artificial. Even worst, he has very little chemistry with the wooden Rebecca Pidgeon. Pidgeon is great at certain things but not as the romantic lead. Sarah Jessica Parker is also great but there is no way the producer would even consider backing down from her. There is a signed contract and they would sue her for the cost of the whole production. The resolution doesn't make sense because Hollywood is not about what happened. It's about showing the boobs. Time and time again, I feel like the story is almost there but it keeps doing something wrong. David Mamet is trying to make a fun romp but I didn't have much fun.

State and Main is a comedy starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles, William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin.The plot involves the on-location production in Waterford, Vermont of a film called The Old Mill.It was written and directed by David Mamet.Havoc is wrought on the inhabitants of a small New England town by a troubled film production. After the leading man's penchant for teenage girls gets them banished from their New Hampshire location, a film crew relocates to the small town of Waterford, Vermont, to finish shooting "The Old Mill."As its title suggests, the film depends on the presence of a genuine mill, something the town is reported to possess. Unfortunately, with only days before principal photography begins, it becomes apparent that the mill in fact burned down decades ago. Unfazed, the film's director, Walt Price, places his faith in the ability of first-time screenwriter Joseph Turner White to alter the script; what he doesn't count on is White's apparently bottomless reserve of angst-fueled writer's block.The film's leading lady refuses to do her contracted nude scene unless she's paid an additional $800,000, while a foreign cinematographer offends the locals by messing with a historic firehouse. Meanwhile, the leading man, Bob Barrenger, dallies with Carla, a crafty local teen. Everything comes to a head after Barrenger and Carla are injured in a car accident, which leads White to another emotional quandary and into the arms of local bookseller Annie Black. Meanwhile a powerful movie producer comes to town to help Price with the ensuing mess.State and Main offers plenty of wit and laughs in its lampoons of the movie industry.It is the funniest and most accessible film to date by David Mamet, propelled by the rocket fuel of his showbiz experience and driven by an ensemble cast that simply couldn't be better. Naturally, the writer's dilemma is the meatiest one and he arrives at a solution that's as hilarious as it is morally justified. Along the way, the rigors of film making are explored with farcical abandon, such as how to provide a high-tech product placement in a 19th-century story. His razor-sharp dialogue is gourmet popcorn here--each kernel yields a tasty surprise--and the whole scenario plays out with the breezy assurance of vintage screwball comedy. It's pure gold from start to finish, and even the closing credits offer another reason to laugh.Obviously,the nice thing about it is that it won't disappoint the viewer.

I didn't know a thing about this film when I sat down to watch it. So seeing the impressive cast and director gave me high hopes maybe this could be a sleeper I had missed! Alas as the film rolled on it soon became clear that this was no sleeper! The trouble is this film felt like a badly performed stage play, the characters were all obvious and so were the events that transpired. It just doesn't give the audience credit for having a brain, instead it spells it out for you in such an unimaginative way that it's more fun to imagine a darker side to proceedings than what happens here. As for the female lead as wooden as the Old Mill. And lastly the whimsical old men who spout local knowledge as if they're a couple of Greek philosopher's, Please!!!

It took quite a bit of negotiation to get the family to see "State and Main," but the cast of William Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alec Baldwin, etc. finally convinced them. My husband was leery that David Mamet could be funny, but we all thought it was hysterical and laughed heartily.It's a much more mordant take on movie-making than Truffaut's "Day For Night" where a love for the magic of the movies still shows through. This has much more of a "Larry Sanders Show" sensibility of total cynicism about the internal and external goings on as a movie company takes over a quaint New England town.While the writer is poked fun at as much as anyone, Mamet's wife Rebecca Pigeon of course gets to play a nice, bright, if manipulative, lady.I'm pretty sure we were the only ones at the audience in Houston who got the Yiddish jokes and references.Stay for all the credits; the jokes continue through the very last frame.(originally written 2/4/2001)