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Back Shelf Beauties
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A Home At For most of you (who are we kidding), for all of us, we know this movie as, "the one where Colin Farrell was supposed to show off his little general." Well, according to press reports (and the greatest publicist in the history of the world), the movie's director and production team decided to cut out the infamous scene when a test screening crowd discovered Colin had a Major General, and it was, "too distracting." After seeing the movie, I have to wonder how Colin's manhood could have distracted the audience from the plot, when not much of a plot exists. Farrell stars as Bobby - a lovable, but screwed up guy. When he was young, Bobby lost most of the people close to him, and found a surrogate home with his high school buddy, Jonathan. The two grew close, ambiguously so, but Jonathan eventually headed off to New York. Years later, Bobby moves to the big city, and into Jonathan's (Dallas Roberts) apartment. However, Bobby also, innocently, moves into Jonathan's life. Will Bobby break up Jonathan's current situation with Clare (Robin Wright Penn)? What is the situation? A Home At The End Of The World is more like a series of scenes that lightly tie together rather than a comprehensive movie with a strong plot, climax and character examination. Writer Michael Cunningham and director Michael Mayer take us on a walk through Bobby's life, but with no goal in mind. Are we supposed to understand Bobby's decisions better? Are we supposed to understand his relationships with others better? Is he supposed to learn a lesson? None of this seems true as we move from place to place. Instead, I felt like Mayer wanted to do some scenes he always hoped to film, and threw them in here with no purpose other than grabbing our attention, which is funny, since he rightfully cut Farrell's full frontal nudity shot because it was gratuitous, meaningless and put attention on the wrong part of the movie (and Colin). Farrell, Penn and Roberts all put in strong performances, but for naught. Farrell does a great job capturing Bobby's perpetual haze approach to life, Roberts is strong as the mixed up and borderline jealous guy, while Penn shows her character's evolution from wild child to reluctantly responsible adult and more (I don't want to give too much away). Too bad the story doesn't take advantage of such talented actors. 1 Waffle (out of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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