Not that I’m a skeezy deejay and we’re opening up the
request line here at Shared Darkness, but a reader e-asked me about the Uma Thurman flick Prime a couple days ago, and so I thought
I’d drop this slightly tweaked and redacted review, originally published to
coincide with the film’s DVD release, and penned for a site that still owes me
money. To wit:
The Boondock Saints,
and it happened in 2000 with writer-director Ben Younger and Boiler Room, a sort of pre-Enron mash-up
of Wall Street
and The Firm for the Gen-X millennial
set in which a college dropout quickly rises the ladder at a suburban
securities and investment firm only to discover seedy goings-on. Unfortunately,
though, commercial grosses are often misread as qualitative tea leaves, and
when Boiler Room pulled in under $17
million at the box office despite the presence of a marquee young cast
including Ben Affleck in a supporting role, Younger went from Next Big Thing to
Just Another Forgotten Thing.
represents his return, and it’s in some small ways triumphant while in most other
ways right in lockstep with his debut — interesting and awkward, and more packed
with promise than fulfillment. Despite the presence of a post-Kill Bill Uma Thurman and exalted
national treasure Meryl Streep, Prime
did hardly better in its theatrical release ($22 million domestically), the
result of a somewhat lackluster promotional campaign that couldn’t convincingly
sell the movie’s offbeat sense of humor, and/or convince audiences to come see
a film in which the male romantic lead was a virtual unknown.
Gardet (Thurman), who finds herself on the relationship rebound with 23-year-old
aspirant painter David (Bryan Greenburg, of the short-lived HBO series Unscripted),
the doted-upon son of Gardet’s very Jewish psychoanalyst, Lisa Metzger (Streep).
The more Rafi tells Lisa about her new young fling, the more Lisa catches on to
his true identity, and so she tries to subtly nudge both parties away from
continuing the relationship. It’s a great concept, but a lot of the trite relationship
stuff rings relatively false, and proxy Greenburg can’t quite pull the weight
of his part. Still, upon further consideration, the movie plays better on the
small screen, where one can more fully give into the joys of Streep’s
pitch-perfect performance.
by a subplot in which David’s friend Morris (Jon Abrahams) seeks revenge on a
woman who spurns him by thrusting banana crème pies in her face. In some ways
both of his films have had palettes too large for conventional genre pieces;
you can tell he takes great delight in writing tangential bits, and for
supporting characters, and when required to push forward the chief narrative boulder he
falls back on clichés that are beneath him. While neither of his studio films
have completely wowed me in aggregate, Younger seems like he would be better
suited toward more intimate, indie-scaled productions, like those of Whit Stillman, Noah
Baumbach and Nicole Holofcener.
of cast and crew interviews in which Streep praises Younger as having “the
confidence of an old soul,” and producer Jennifer Todd talks about her initial
attraction to the material. Eight minutes of deleted scenes feature all kinds
of interstitial bits, odds and ends, and showcase in unique fashion the
challenges of feigning a loud party scene with no music. Also included are four
minutes of outtakes, though these are frequently less outrageous bloopers than
halting, alternative versions of scenes, with a few laughs thrown in for good
measure. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)