Photograph titled "Untitled (TV room), from the Portfolio Graceland" by William Eggleston, 1983
The Romantics had several strikes against it from the start. First, I was not feeling too well when I saw it. Second, it was a movie about rich, entitled, young white people with lame problems - not my favorite movie genre. And third, most importantly, the print of the film we saw had seriously problems with its audio track, rendering about five seconds of every minute of the movie inaudible. As a result, not only did I get pretty frustrated with the movie, I was in a large theater full of people who were upset about the situation. Since none of these problems are the fault of the filmmaker and cast, is it fair for me to talk about how terrible the movie is? I think so - I think I could see past the situational problems affecting my viewing experience and say that few people I know would enjoy The Romantics under the best of circumstances.
It's too bad that The Romantics is a bad movie because there are some things about it that are quite good. The story is nothing special - Laura (Katie Holmes) goes to the wedding of her best friend Lila (Anna Paquin) and her ex-lover Tom (Josh Duhamel) that turns out to be a reunion of sorts for the college clique the three belonged to (the titular "Romantics"). Laura's relationships with Lila and Tom have understandably become complicated by the impending marriage, particularly as she has not achieved any sort of closure on her own relationship with Tom. This is the core conflict in the movie and Holmes (who also produced the movie) delivers a quite-good performance. The other players do fairly well, including underused but capable supporting players like Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, and Adam Brody - the only one who doesn't really deliver is Duhamel, who just isn't right for this kind of role or this kind of movie. A key scene in the movie centers on him quoting Keats, and it just doesn't really work.
Which brings me to the main problem with The Romantics - the script just isn't that good. And that's a sad thing to have to say about a movie adapted by author Galt Niederhoffer from his own novel and directed by her as well. The story moves too fast, never giving the viewer time to get to know any of the characters other than Laura, and much of the dialogue is just the wrong combination of stilted and clumsy. Some problems with the pacing may still be fixable as the version shown at Sundance is still a work in progress (the terrible and too-loud musical cues may also be improved dramatically in the final version) but I don't really think there is a really good movie to be found here. As I said, Holmes is very good here, but she can't make up for The Romantics' deficiencies, especially when it so clearly invites comparisons to much better movies (Rachel Getting Married springs to mind). I'm almost glad I didn't see The Romantics under better circumstances - I probably would just have been THAT much more disappointed.
"This Is How You Spell 'HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics'" by Los Campesinos
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