haiku movie review: Waydowntown
¶ by Rob Friesel
Kind of an art house
“Office Space”; Plebeian coup!
But not as funny.
I wanted to like this one. I really did. The opening scene was so strong — it was such a great setup that seemed a bit… Wasted? The film seemed a bit unfocused to me; like it could have been a really strong short film if it had focused entirely on Tom. Instead it seemed to veer all over the place, trying to pull in meaningful side-stories from some of the supporting characters. But I just wasn’t feeling it.
Which (contrary to what I’m suggesting) is not to say that I didn’t like Waydowntown. Like I mentioned, the opening narration is a great setup 1 with a clever monologue and some interesting images. There are also a few other scenes that work really well — all of them centered around Tom (the central character). The way it weaved in/out of his reality and hallucinated fantasy worlds had a lot unrealized potential and this really could have been improved in one of two ways: (1) cutting out some of the other, clumsier scenes to focus on “Tom’s world”; or (2) expanding the film’s scope a bit to tie things together a bit more effectively.
In summary? It came close to being “great” but will have to settle for being “good”.
BONUS ROUND: Compare/contrast with Haiku Tunnel:
Film: “Office Space” meets
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”;
good, funny, “at times”.
- …for the movie we didn’t actually get…[↩]
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