Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)
By: John Krasinski (director, screenplay), David Foster Wallace (story)
Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Ben Shenkman, Timothy Hutton, Michael Cerveris, Corey Stoll, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Will Arnett, John Krasinski, Josh Charles, Frankie Faison, Dominic Cooper
A graduate student (Nicholson) copes with a recent breakup by conducting interviews with various men.
Combine a gaggle of talented actors with an occasionally inspired but mostly pretentious indie script, and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is what you get. Based on the novel of the same name, the film centers on a graduate student and her “interviews” (Both formal and impromptu) with various men, ostensibly in an attempt to discover how the advent of feminism has affected their psyche.
While this film had its bright spots, the end result is disjointed and vainglorious. You’re made aware from the start that the lead character is conducting interviews as a matter of academic research, but it isn’t until the very end that you’re told what for. This moment, which should have so neatly and profoundly tied together all of the movie’s strange and loose ends, utterly fails to do anything other than further confuse the viewer. There seems to be very little to connect the various vignettes: while a number of them are clearly focused on the male attitude toward women, there are also scenes so completely removed from the topic that you wonder why they’re there. There is no weight to this film; it’s as if all of the various bits have been tossed into the air and filmed where they landed without any regard for continuity or effectively communicating a point.
Which isn’t to say it’s all bad, because as I mentioned, much of the acting is quite good. It’s simply unfortunate that the better parts—Frankie Faison’s recounting of his father’s position as a restroom attendant, Josh Charles’ perpetually reused and rehearsed “it’s not you, it’s me” break up speech, Dominic Cooper’s impassioned insistence that bad experiences can make for a more whole person—have nothing to tether them to the rest of the story. What could be genuinely moving is instead squandered, a collection of monologues that are occasionally engaging on their own but rendered ineffective when lumped in with all the others. I get the impression that Max Minghella and Lou Taylor Pucci could have been truly brilliant as would-be narrators of the tale, but I honestly have no idea what they were doing there.
The film’s biggest indiscretion lies with director John Krasinski’s self-insertion as the wayward love interest, which ultimately culminates in a rambling, grandiose monologue that absolutely reeks of indie self-importance. Oh, you are so smart and precious, John, you special snowflake you.
I can’t recommend it on its own merit, but it’s not a total wash. If you have a fondness for one of the actors and nothing better to do, take the time. Actually, no. Just go rent Away We Go instead, as it’s a John Krasinski movie that doesn’t suck.
