The Perfect 46 (2014)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fantastic!

Best movie ever!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is a mostly expository film, so if you don't like people yammering, you're prolly not gonna like it.I agree with many others that the film breaks some good rules such as:Complete lack of sympathetic characters. The ostensible protagonist is a jerk. His main business rival is a smarmy clown, like a real life Sideshow Bob ffs. The two burglars are ciphers until the very end and then the main one just comes across as a pathetic idiot.And the end is the worst part. All this build up and then there's no release, no cathartic moment, no resolution at all. The film does contain an interesting take on the potential upsides and downsides to widespread genetic testing, but it fails as a film.I don't regret watching it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not already interested in the debate within. And I certainly will never watch it again.

This film had an interesting concept, but lacked all elements that make a film watchable. The dialogue alone made me want to pull my hair out. It takes question and answer dialogue to a whole new meaningless level. The lead actor had no connection to anything and was excruciating to watch. The ending was so anticlimactic and predictable, but also confusing and cliché'. I'm confused as to what the director was trying to say with this film. There wasn't any address to why the main character wanted this so badly. If he wanted to just help people, why did he charge money for the service? Did he hate having OCD so much that he created this formula? And why was the OCD never mentioned? I was counting down the minutes for this boring, pointless film to just end.

The Perfect 46The Perfect 46 follows in a recent trend in science fiction, that is more interested in exploring the potential of human experience than actually depicting that future through CGI and fancy sets. The Perfect 46 offers new slant on this trend though; whereas the work of Shane Carruth, Gareth Edwards and Duncan Jones focuses on ordinary people dealing with future concepts. The Perfect 46 looks at the experience of the person who has invented the new 'thing' and who has to take responsibility for it when it fails. That person is Jesse Darden, creator of theperfect46.com: a website service which takes the genome sequence of you and your partner and tells you the likelihood of any future child inheriting a life altering condition. The film is an interesting mix of stories than depict Jesse's life in various different ways. Snapshots of his personal life and the business' development are contrasted with a tense and slightly sinister break-in at Jesse's home and the discovery, by one of the burglars, of a TV-style documentary about the company and Jesse (which does well to provide all the contextual information and science-fictionally elements of the plot). In combining these elements the film is able to convey a lot of information whilst still having the space to explore the impact of theperfect46.com in a more naturalistic way. The central example being an extended dinner party scene, where the guests challenge Jesse on his ideals and a technology conference where Jesse spells out his idealistic view of theperfect46.com.These aspects of the film are so unusual and well conceived that it is almost disappointing that the film takes a more emotional turn in the ending, revealing the motivation of one of the burglars is connected to a very personal experience. The Perfect 46 is a remarkably brave film that deals with the difficult topic of eugenics, calls into question the responsibility of the dotcom tycoons who have a significant affect on everyday lives and doing so without grandstanding special effects but with a naturalistic and intricate script and an outstanding central performance by Whit Hertford.

Written and directed by Brett Ryan Bonowicz, The Perfect 46 charts the rise and fall of Jesse Darden, the creator of a website that assesses the genetic compatibility of would-be parents, and later develops into a glorified dating website. Whit Hertford's performance as Darden is one of the few things I can recommend about The Perfect 46. When Derden is on the up Hertford brings to the role a passionate intensity that is reminiscent of Steve Jobs and other wunderkind from the modern tech industry. Likewise, Hertford does a great job of conveying dark despair, with an element of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, once things start to go wrong for Darden. A turning point for Darden comes when his own product shows him to be sterile and his wife leaves him. Later, there are also company problems to be faced.Unfortunately, The Perfect 46 violates a couple of key principles of movie-making. Firstly, rather than letting action drive the plot and letting characters' behaviours reveal their thoughts and attitudes, large swathes of the film are given to interminable explanations and ethical discussions. If I wanted to have issues relating to genetic matchmaking explained to me, I would read a book or watch a documentary; in film fiction, however, extended explanation is frankly a bore. The Perfect 46 presents us with company executives giving explanations to news programmes, with executives expounding in the boardroom, and at one point there is even a dinner party at which characters bat the issues back and forth at great length. Part of the plot involves two hooded men breaking into Darden's country retreat, where one of them then engages in even more philosophical discussion with Darden.The second problem is the lack of any sympathetic character. Darden himself is the central figure in the film. Unfortunately, we are never given any reason to care about him. You might think that being diagnosed as sterile would give the viewer some reason to feel for Darden, but ironically he mostly behaves like a prick.In the final scene of the film, the reason for the intruders' break-in is made clear. Frustratingly, the dialogue at this point becomes quite intense and convincing. In one sense you could say the film ended on a high point, but on the other hand this last segment also hinted at how much better the rest of the film could have been.