Sorry, Thanks (2009)

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Seriously, people involved with the production of films or related to the filmmaker, or indeed the filmmakers themselves really need to stop making a point of leaving positive reviews for their films. There's nothing more ridiculous than to read reviews for a film like Sorry, Thanks claiming it to be funny, truthful, well acted, ground breaking etc when it is very clearly none of these things. The film's described as an unromantic comedy, suggesting that the writer/director wanted the audience to think the film was breaking new ground, sadly it's just like many of the so called mumblecore films where frankly unlikeable and self absorbed post teen college graduates take dead end jobs, begin and and end relationships, whilst talking about random things during random scenes which don't drive the films forward, or add anything to the plots. Or, as in the case of Sorry, Thanks, even have a plot. In Sorry, Thanks the main character, Kira breaks up with her boyfriend, takes a dead end job with a publisher and then starts sleeping with a lot of random guys, including one of her best friends. Max is also in a dead end job that he can't even bothered to turn up on time to do and has a girlfriend who loves him but who he treats rather badly, plus two friends who are equally as hopeless as he is but who regularly accuse him of being an arsehole and a jerk.The equally idiotic Kira never sorts out what job she should be doing, or who she should be with. Max doesn't stop being an arsehole and a jerk but his girlfriend continues to put up with him, even after she discovers that he has cheated on her. At no time is it clear why both Kira and the nice girlfriend are willing to spare the idiot Max the time of day let alone date him, or why Max is so drawn to Kira who does nothing but pull weird faces allthe time. The whole thing could have been adequately covered in a 15 minute short but, in order to bump it up to a feature, we're subjected to endless pointless scenes which add up to nothing at all. if you value your time don't waste it on this.

I feel bad giving this film a star because it was honestly the most mundane film I've ever seen. I kept waiting for it to get interesting but it didn't. Every scene was equally as boring, the storyline was loose at best and the "drama" that surrounded consisted mainly of boring dialogue. I felt that most of the characters lacked any depth and there was no on screen chemistry to speak of. There was little emotion attached to any of the actions of the characters and the really simplistic storyline could be summed up in less than 20 minutes as all the other scenes added very little to the main plot, in fact they added very little to anything. For a romantic comedy, it was neither particularly romantic nor particularly funny. I really felt this film lacked anything worth mentioning.

"Sorry, Thanks" is an independent film that takes place in San Francisco. The story focuses on two main characters, Max, a loser with a dead-end job and no plans, and Kira, an artist who, according to her friends, settles for less than what she's worth. Kira is in a period of transition, having just gotten out of a long relationship and her old job. She is looking for the next step in her life when she decides on a crap job and has a couple of romantic encounters with the incredibly unappealing Max despite his having a girlfriend who loves him dearly and treats him well. The film is a series of scenes which were, for the most part, completely unnecessary to the plot, or repetitive, driving in the point that Max is a lazy bum with no morals and no motivation, such as the scene at the beginning in which his bearded friend gives him a ride and tells him how lazy his, or when he and a group of friends are eating and they tell him that he has no morals. I felt that the first half of the film could have been removed and the plot would have been more concrete and the characters just as understood.This film was not emotionally appealing in any way, it does not come off as comedic as the director seemed to think, and the acting and cinematography were uncomfortable to watch. The idea, from what director Dia Sokol said in a Q and A, was to put together a film displaying a very normal, everyday existence. The characters based on people that she and others involved on the project knew personally in San Francisco and the title is meant to be something so common that one would normally never think about it. To achieve her goal of creating a nondescript environment, she wanted to keep the movie fairly devoid of chemistry or romance, which she certainly achieved, to negative results. The lack of passion from characters and of a conclusion to the abrupt ending leave this film without any particular intrigue. The viewer isn't made to care much about any of the characters and there is no apparent moral. It simply falls flat.

This is a delightful and all-too-real portrayal of several 20-somethings stumbling through their lives and doing the best they can, but not really getting anywhere and not understanding why. Wiley Wiggins does a great job as Max whose life is as aimless as his work.It combines the Hollywood buddy and relationship movies without being either exactly, but rather becomes more of a comment on how something isn't quite there.It's very well directed, acted and beautifully written with an absolutely perfect ending. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even with all of my cringing. Yes, I will see it again.