Perfect Life (2010)

Just what I expected

A different way of telling a story

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Jack(Jesse Bradford), Freddy (Scot Williams) and there friend Anne (Sienna Guillory) are childhood friends. Freddy is from a wealthy family and Jack is poor and they both loves Anne. Freddy has everything in life and tells Jack he going to marry Anne after college. They all enter the same college. Freddy wants Jack to pledge a elite fraternity together. Anne becomes concerned about a dangerous stunt they pulled. Jack's life is reckless and he sees his life was going down hill. Jack sees Freddy and Anne having a PERFECT LIFE. Jack decides to show his pain of life's situations by driving a vehicle down an embankment with Freddy as a passenger and Freddy dies in the crash. Jack had elected his own death rather then abandon his(selfish)principles of his life; he would leave this would courageous and in control of his destiny. I studied the movie and picked apart all the unusual scenes to understand the story line.I believe this movie is an example of a Greek tragedy- which is based on truth and fact and Aristolelian view of death which is based on two separate parts of a human the physical and the soul.Jack Parson is disembodied or in a coma in a hospital room. Jack recklessly drove a car with his friend Freddy (Scot Williams) down a hill. Freddy dies but Jack will not accept that he murdered Freddy.The programs on the television screen in Jack's hospital room are the created events of Jack's reality- his truths. Jack is in a near death experience, a disembodied soul making up stories and illusions that is his life using these scenes from programs on the television which he wants to believe really happened. The Elder (Steven Berkoff) exemplifies the TRUTH to Jack Parson (Jesse Bradford). Jack believe his vision are true events. Jack must except the choices he made in his life (the truth) of his reckless life and he must accept the eternal consequences after his death. The Greek philosophy of death in the movie shows symbols of water, the stars in heaven- which all are part of the soul drinking of water during transition of the body and soul during death, is depicted throughout the movie and the black outs and scenes with water (the pool,the locker,the airline bathroom, Vera in the bathtub and great escape under the wine cellar into the moat where Jack saves Anne from drowning. The statement "look at the stars" represents the Roman warriors go as a reward for their courage and strength against an enemy at death. You will shine among the stars - these are the rewards after death.NOW to understand all of the scenes throughout the movie! All of the events-- are stories of Jack's life, his Perfect Life, of lies.The television scenes created the illusion of truths in his life. The most interesting is the actual scene where Jack sees the reflection of Marisol (Joanna Moskwa) through the sunglasses he placed on the statue--He turns around to see no one. Then at the of the movie Marisol, Jack's nurse, turns off the television and you see her image (the same) and then you see the light streak across the screen as Jacks soul departs from this world after he excepted his "secret TRUTHS". He also shows many scenes with Marisol example as a maid at a castle, at a bar, at a beach and once Marisol flagged the race, also Vera (Emily Hamilton) flag the second scene of the car crash. The television had a police and car chase. The Rolls Royce that picks them up at the airport. Jack's stories are all lies. I believe Vera is Jack's part time companion. I do not want to believe Jack was with Anne, though the Elder said he was with her.The television was the link to all of Jack's truths in his life while dying in the hospital. The elder tells Jack that he killed Freddy and Jack accepts his punishment his SECRET TRUTH.This movie needed a lot of work. So does my disjointed review. I bought this movie to see Jesse Bradford in a different acting role. It is quite different - a very sad and tragic way of life. I usually receive a warmth at his facial expressions and mannerisms in his other parts in other movies this one did show a cooler indifferent side.I do not believe this spoils the movie but answers complex questions about what was going on with so many scenes. The story line is linear but can be very confusing. I hope am correct on my viewpoint. Watch it and see what you make of Perfect Life (Victims)?

You ever find yourself in a situation where you are listening to someone talk about a situation that happened to them? And somewhere in the middle of the story, you find yourself not only lost but bored beyond belief? If so, I know the reason why. It's because you don't care. This can be for a few different reasons. 1, the person telling the story doesn't know how to tell a story. 2, the story itself lacks an interest. Or 3, you don't care about the people in the story. When it comes to this movie, all three reasons stick out in my mind. Does the audience care about the people in the movie...no. We are introduced to several different characters, all lack a connection to someone in the general audience. Much of these people don't exist in our day to day lives. The audience has no one to connect to. It's hard to care about what happens to any of these people because we don't honestly feel for any of them. These are made up people in a made up school that are thrown into a situation no one cares about. With that said, the story, which borders on the horror / science fiction / paranormal / strange side of things falls short close to anything interesting because the audience doesn't care about the people in the situation. The weird plot only buries any other chance of the audience supporting the movie as anything interesting or entertaining. The final comparison to the lack of caring falls on the shoulders of the script and the direction. Was it just me or did it feel like the movie had 5 different Directors on it? Several scenes had different styles and themes making the movie not flow easily. You want to take your audience down a path to the final scenes in the movie. If they had different styles to confuse the audience because that was the idea, it fails miserably. Its not like you are trying to guess if this is a dream sequence or really happening, I think the movie had no idea what is was when they are trying to make it. The story itself has scenes that seem wrong for the overall plot. Are we suppose to laugh or find certain scenes smart when the overall theme is a struggle to understand reality? Are certain characters suppose to be there for comic relief but are later to be taken seriously, how does that work. I hate to be a hater but its hard to find any qualities in this movie to justify its existence. In the end, a Perfect Life is a terrible movie.

Good job with the story and performances. It's not easy to figure out if the character Jack Parsons(done well by actor Jesse Bradford) is experiencing a black out, having a dream or is awake and facing a real moment until everything is clarified to us towards the end of the movie. I'm still not clear with some of the happenings in the story but that can be ignored. All the actors have done well. I feel the best performance of the movie goes to Emily Hamilton who plays a supporting role in this movie as a high-strung, sexually promiscuous character Vera. Verdict: Not thrilling enough for repeated viewing but still, an interesting first-time watch.

Perfect Life starts as best friends & college students Jack Parson (Jesse Bradford) & Freddy Langham (Scot Williams) are trying to get into a trendy fraternity, Jack is a drug addicted loser while Freddy has rich English parents & wants for nothing. The only thing that Freddy wants but cannot buy is his childhood sweetheart Anne (Sienna Guillory) while Jack also wants Anne & the two start having an affair behind Freddy's back. After a night of 'airbagging' Freddy heads home to England & invites his friends along as well, there Jack tells Freddy about his affair with Anne. As expected Freddy doesn't take the news that well & locks his friends in his wine cellar but something isn't right, Jack has to face up to reality, a reality he might not like...This Luxembourg & American co-production was directed by Josef Rusnak & I have to say right away that I though Perfect Life was absolutely dire, maybe I watched it at a bad time but I thought Perfect Life epitomises everything that I hate about modern horror thriller cinema. The script is an incoherent mess, from the broken time-line that switches back & forth for no apparent reason to the predictable & bland twist's that offer no surprises to constant reworking of reality as certain things are real, certain things are hallucinations while other's are distortions of the truth. This constant annoying & seemingly random way the script switches from reality to dream to flashback to ambiguity leads nowhere & only really stretches an already overlong & boring film out even more. The twist ending doesn't have much to do with the rest of the film & a lot of what happens seems unrelated. At 100 odd minutes I was bored to tears, I really haven't been so bored is disinterested in a film while watching for a long time. The character's are horrible, they are really unlike model like teenagers from selfish drug addicts to rich idiots. The plot really makes no sense, just a collection of pointless dreams, flashbacks & half truth's I really disliked Perfect Life & thought it made little cohesive sense.To be honest I am not even sure what type or style of film the makers were going for, is Perfect Life a horror or a thriller or a drama? Maybe Perfect Life tries to be all three yet succeeds at being none. There's a dead body, some severed fingers, a bit of bad language & some tame sex in order to get an adult rating but Perfect Life could easily have been rated 'PG' with a few minor edits. Perfect Life is set partly in the US & partly here in the UK, the bright cinematography & picture perfect cast of teens just gives this a really bland feel.The IMDb says Perfect Life had a budget of about $10,000,000 which frankly astounds me, where did all the money go? This was apparently filmed in London, Luxembourg & Rome in Italy. Although shot back in 2004 this wasn't released until 2010 because one of the production companies went bankrupt (spending ten million on this crap probably didn't help, did it?). The acting isn't great, all the character's end up really unlikable & therefore Perfect Life is a very difficult film to enjoy.Perfect Life is a terrible film, it's not really the sort of film that I would normally watch but it was on telly for free & it sounded like a horror film, I wish that I hadn't bothered now. From an abysmal script that abruptly changes from reality to dream to flashback at random to a terrible twist ending that has been done before & been done better. Perfect Life thinks it's clever, it's not.