Director: Pascal Chaumeil
Genre: Comedy/ Drama
Runtime: 96 minutes
Year: 2014
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul, Sam Neill, Rosamund Pike
Description: Four people meet on New Year's Eve and form a surrogate family to help one another weather the difficulties of their lives.
Review: Former TV Show host Martin is standing on top of a tall building, waiting his moment to jump. Maureen interrupts him, but she has the same plan. Totally in tears and seemingly desperate, the young Jess arrives and she’s in a hurry to end her life too. And pizza boy J.J. is the fourth person to join them. Four complete strangers, different people all with their own reasons, form a pact: not to commit or try to commit suicide before valentine’s day. With this pact an unlikely friendship arises.
The novel is written by author Nick Hornby, who previously had his books “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy” made into films successfully. Hornby is a master at writing books which combine wit and light drama perfectly. Although the theme, suicide, is very heavy, the story never feels like that. Hornby did a fantastic job. Sadly, the movie didn’t do it justice.
The movie is little over 90 minutes long. There is hardly any character development, when the book did this so wonderfully. It’s the books strength and it’s an essential point in the story. You want to get to know them and relate to them, but it’s almost impossible. The story feels rushed.
The actors aren’t the problem. It’s a good cast and they did a solid job. They all tried their best. Imogen Poots is probably the eye catcher, as troubled Jess.
The movie isn’t terrible, it’s average and very watchable. But it couldn’t live up to the great novel by Nick Hornby. The director had the material: a great story and good actors. He simply didn’t do enough with it. Sad…
Rating: 2,5/ 5
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