Welcome to 2023! This year we didn't make any New Year's Resolutions, we made a ROSS-O-LUTION. Starting with 28 Hotel Rooms (2012), Matt Ross's debut feature.
In our New Year's Ross-o-lution! (Laura's genius addition to this series) a limited series dedicated to the films of Matt Ross, we begin where you are likely to start; the debut feature 28 HOTEL ROOMS.
We give it a strong C+, a good start. But what you kinda get is a risky film that doesn't take the risks it needs to stand out a bit more. You can make up your mind about it but welcome back and here's to another successful year!
Laura: Are you sufficiently lubed, Ryan?
Ryan: Which lips, bitch?
Laura: Lips. What would you say?
Ryan: Which lips?
Laura: Hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my one, the only co host that we have here. Ryan.
Ryan: Oh, sorry. Uh, I awoke from my New Year's slumber, and this film put me right back into that slumber.
Laura: And that sleepy film is the 2012 drama 28 Hotel Rooms. In the grand tradition, of course, of films starting with the number 28.
Ryan: Yes, it is. There's zombies in hotel rooms, and there's.
Laura: 28 of them, and they're all needing to go to rehab.
Ryan: They are all in unrequited relationships. Uh, um and they kind of sit and talk about it for a very long time.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I want brains and commitment.
Laura: Just so we're clear on this podcast, this is not, uh, uh, 28 Days Later.
Ryan: Yeah, Danny Boyle didn't have anything to do with this one.
Laura: That was episode seven of this podcast. It's not 28 Weeks Later, and it is not the Sandra Bullock rehab movie 28 Days.
Ryan: Oh, okay. I didn't realize there was another one.
Laura: That's why I said rehab.
Ryan: Yeah, they love I mean, you know why they call things after the number 28? Because of 28 Days later. I mean, that's obviously the reason why.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, that's fine. I don't know if there's a significance to the number 28. Who knows? I know there's a significance to the number 42.
Ryan: Did we count the number of transitions in this movie? If there was actually 28 if there.
Laura: Isn'T, then I'm going to have a problem. I trust that there were 28 different situations.
Ryan: 28 different rooms.
Laura: 28 different rooms.
Ryan: Right. Okay.
Laura: So the synopsis of this film real quick, even though this is a horrifically long synopsis pulled from Letterboxd, is okay, I'm ready. While traveling for work in a city far from their homes, a novelist and a corporate accountant find themselves in bed together. It's like, whoops, what are you doing here? Hold on, there's more. Although she's married and he's seeing someone, their intense attraction turns a one night stand into an unexpected relationship and a respite from the obligations of daily life.
Ryan: Okay, hold on.
Laura: I'm not done. Though. A series of moments, some profound, some silly, some intensely intimate, we see a portrait of an evolving relationship that could become the most significant one of their lives. Yeah, that's very long. Uh, this is a film about an affair between a couple of people who maybe aren't the best people.
Ryan: No. I mean, I think from initially meeting them at the beginning of the movie, there's a distinct lack of attraction, certainly to Chris. Uh, is it Messian?
Laura: Messina.
Ryan: Oh, Messina. Messian. Where did I get that from?
Laura: Messian? I don't know, because it's a Messier film.
Ryan: Uh, yeah, this is a real Messina. Um, to put it kind of flatly, it's a series of conversations in hotel rooms between these two characters. We never see any other characters. Literally. We are subjected to the ins and outs of this affair, and we are kind of given highlights into what's happening in their other private lives as they are meeting to cohort with each other in these hotel rooms. Um, that's really all it is. That's really all this film is, which isn't a bad thing. It's just a little bit dull.
Laura: There is a good movie in there somewhere, I'm sure.
Ryan: Potentially. Potentially, but it's an incredibly the word sleepy, I think, aptly describes this film to an absolute t. Yes, I do think it's shot relatively quite well. I think Doug Emmett, uh, the cinematographer behind this film, who shot things like, um, Paranormal Activity Four. Um, I think he's done a decent job of trying to make what looks like it's maybe five or six rooms that they had access to, and they make sure the camera is in a different corner each time, um, in order to make best use out of these rooms. Um, there are 20 different rooms, by the way.
Laura: Okay, my, um, apologies. 20 different hotels. 20 specific hotels that they used. And some of the hotels, they were able to get two or three rooms out of it, depending on what it looked like from the outside, if you had a different view or some of the rooms were set up differently.
Ryan: 20 hotels. Okay. Um, yeah, that's kind of what it feels like. I mean, this is an incredibly low budget film, or at least it appears to be a low budget movie. I think they try their best with the way it kind of looks. Um, the tone of the film kind of reminded me a little bit of Code, uh, 46, and another movie called Upstream Color. So it kind of has it, but it's not as interesting as those movies because they're kind of like Sci-Fi esque movies. Um, but the tone and the style, um, kind of reminded me of those, uh, slightly better.
Laura: Yeah, that's so I want to get into Matt Ross, who's the director of this film, but we were saying that Chris Messina is in this film, and obviously there's just two people in it. We see other people, maybe bar patrons at the hotel, bar maids, hotel staff. That's it. We don't meet any of the other characters. So, uh, the woman in this film is Marin Ireland, and they don't have names. There's a woman and man, marin Ireland. She has a really, really strong background in stage. That's where she met Chris Messina doing a show in New York called Far Away back in 2002. It was just the two of them with Francis McDormand. That's how they met and became friends. So they've been friends for ages. Chris Messina, he is in a bunch of stuff. So many so many things.
Ryan: He's in. You've got mail and things like that.
Laura: He's naked in another film called Digging for Fire, which is a 2015 film by Joe Swanberg that doesn't joe Swanberg. His catalog could fill up a whole year of our podcast, the Year of the Swan. Well, maybe we'll never do that, but he's got a lot of movies with penises in them.
Ryan: Okay, good for him. Yeah. We might be able to if we want to do, uh the Year of Swanberg. Yeah, the year the swan came in.
Laura: The year the Swan came home to Roost.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Came and dropped all the penises everywhere.
Ryan: Flew by and dropped a big sack of dongs right on your fat head. Yeah.
Laura: So Matt Ross is a really interesting person to have as the director of this film. And we've talked about him a lot because obviously we're doing this podcast and you as a director and as a filmmaker, ryan I think it's interesting because he's an actor.
Ryan: Well, yeah, he started off as an actor.
Laura: I mean, you could do more than one thing. I'm just saying. We know, you know, a general audience. Typically, as an actor, I'll bring up.
Ryan: Some of his acting roles when we talk about him a little.
Laura: Well, yeah, I know him as Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: I've seen him in a million other but but I'll give it to you.
Ryan: Okay.
Ryan: So we're talking about Matt Ross, or if you weren't aware, his full name is Matthew Brandon Ross, in case you were unaware of what Matt was short for. Um, he is seen as an actor, director, and screenwriter, and somewhat come cinematographer. But that's because he shot, like, one of his shorts or something. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Um, okay, so he's best known probably as an actor, right. So let's just say you brought up Gavin, uh, Belson for Silicon Valley. I had that written down. He's also Glenn Odkirk in The Aviator. That Martin Scorsese picture. Very memorable film. And, uh, he also plays and probably more famously, at least to me, um, he played Louis Carruthers in American Psycho. And we rewatched that scene before we started this so I could reacquaint myself with who Matthew is, where he kisses Patrick Bateman's hand. Yes, I love it.
Laura: Um I love that movie.
Ryan: But his filmography as a director is relatively quite small, as you might imagine. Um, starts off in 97 with The Language of Love, which is the short film, which he probably shot I can't really remember human Resources, which is also a short, um, which was in 2009. And then, obviously, we have the film that we're talking about today, which is 28 hotel rooms in 2012. But then there's also Captain Fantastic in 2016. This is a matthew. This is a rossathon.
Laura: This is our New Year's raw solution.
Ryan: This is, uh, a.
Laura: Came up with that just on the fly. It's my new year's. Matt Ross solution. We're going to do a double. We're going to talk about Captain Fantastic. Which is a much more famous film than this one. But you got to start somewhere. You have to have a feature debut.
Ryan: Like most stories, like most affairs, you have to start at the beginning, usually. I've not finished talking about Ross or Matt Ross.
Laura: Sorry. I just wanted to talk about the Ross.
Ryan: Well, no, he's jeso. Right. So anyway, uh, as a filmmaker, as a director, he's also worked on episodes of Silicon Valley. You're such a derailer. You're like that groups of thugs in the Western times when they used to drop metal pipes on train tracks so they could rob the train after it derailed.
Laura: I'm taking over.
Ryan: You're just taking everything away from me. I'm not happy about it. I wish things would have changed for 2023, but they obviously have not.
Laura: No. And it's just going to get worse.
Ryan: You're still a parasitic entity that just SAPS away all the comedic energy from me. Yeah.
Laura: Thank you.
Ryan: Great. Anyway, so he's worked on Silicon Valley, um, and also, uh, he's also been working on that Sean Penn Julia Roberts series called Gaslit as well, which I think he's maybe directed all the episodes for.
Laura: That looks like his cup of tea.
Ryan: Okay, well, either way. Either way, there's that. But, uh, yeah, he's also an actor. I mean, he's also in Twelve Monkeys. He's also in Face Off, and he's also in a movie called Pushing Ten, which I didn't think we'd ever bring up.
Laura: I really wish that you would never bring up that film.
Ryan: That lovely Mike Newell joint. That movie a movie about a comedy about life, love, airplanes, and other bumpy rides.
Laura: Ill, don't bring up BBT in this house again.
Ryan: I haven't got a problem with the big Billy Bob. I think he's okay.
Laura: Uh, keep bringing Billy Bob Thornton in this house. Keep bringing it up on the podcast. It's going to make me mad.
Ryan: Well, that covers Matthew. I've done everything with Matthew. And like you say, this is our New Year's resolution.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: So bad. It's so awful. It's so good.
Ryan: So this is part one. So we're doing, uh, 28 hotel rooms.
Laura: Yes, we've been talking about that already.
Ryan: The sleepy directorial debut from Matthew Ross.
Laura: This film is an unrated film, but when we watched it, it's playing it's streaming on Tubi right now for free. And it says TVMA. And you can imagine why it is on the podcast. We are going to talk about a wiener. But it's a movie about an affair. And so you can imagine that every time they get into one of these 28 hotel rooms, they're having sex. So it's a very sex, uh, heavy movie. I would not call this a sexy movie.
Ryan: There's nothing really very sexy about it.
Laura: Everything's quite blue.
Ryan: Yeah, it feels very bleached, uh, out. There's a lot of overexposure in the whites. Um, but I guess with that, there's a distinct level of detail in the film. There's nothing groundbreaking in this. I'll kind of put that out there. There's nothing groundbreaking about it. It's very much at its heart, uh, low budget indie movie.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, a lot of this movie is improvised as well. They had a script.
Ryan: You don't say.
Laura: But Matt Ross wanted the actors to kind of feel out their characters and change things on the fly if necessary, if it didn't feel right for their character, and so on and so forth.
Ryan: As a result of, uh, that, though, it does feel a wee bit wandering. Uh, I was kind of hoping to kind of be drawn into a lot of these musings and stuff that they have. But these characters are relatively unrelatable now, unless you're a novelist. And to me, I was like, this Christmas Eve guy doesn't look anything like a fucking novelist. But then also with the other character, Ireland, um um, there's nothing really particular, at least for me anyway. There was nothing particularly attractive about either of them that I could latch onto and seemingly understand and feel like I was following their story.
Laura: Well, I think I can understand how you would set that up in the film. These are two people that are just attracted to each other physically. And it takes a long time for her to open up about herself and to open up about her life and her job. I mean, one of the first times we actually see them have a real full conversation, they're in bed together and he's asking her questions. And she doesn't want him to even really know her name or anything. Um, because I don't think she wants to get attached to this situation, which obviously doesn't go her way.
Ryan: No.
Laura: Um, the movie, it opens with sex. There's butts.
Ryan: I thought you were going to say it opened with the Oscilloscope logo because this is part of the Oscilloscope saga, as we're finally beginning to understand.
Laura: Yeah. Our last movie is one of those as well.
Ryan: Yeah. So, uh, it opens with I mean, I was going to say hard sex.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: But it opens with a hard zipper pull where I was just like, wait, hold on.
Laura: I know. That would just do that violent zipper pull. Yeah, she pulled it down. I go, you would worry. What if he's not wearing underwear?
Ryan: What if his dick was pressed against that, uh, zipper? Because if he's ready for sexy times, he might have had a little bit of a boner.
Laura: Also, this is 2012. This is back in the day of skinny jeans.
Ryan: Yeah. Has he not?
Laura: What if he had tight trousers on and it's all pressed up against there and you pull there's something about Mary.
Ryan: You just took what I was going to say. Yes, there is something about Mary moment that could have potentially completely soured this affair.
Laura: You said I was sucking all your jokes. There you go.
Ryan: I got you exactly like a fucking comedic leech. Um.
Laura: And I do think that there is kind of a Wibbly wobbly time element to this film. I don't think that it's complete. It obviously isn't completely chronological because it opens with a sexy time, and then it's like, we're going to their first meeting, but we're not when they have the Chocolate Explosion cake. Right. They see each other from across a hotel restaurant. Uh and he orders a chocolate Explosion.
Ryan: Well, here's the thing. I mean, I like the fact that maybe the film opens on their sexy time. Right.
Laura: Rip.
Ryan: And then it's the opening title, and then it's the meeting just before that sexy time.
Laura: Yeah. It runs fairly chronologically because it's kind of weird.
Ryan: There's obvious part passing of time of, like, where beards well, people are like, facial hair is changing, someone's wearing glasses. Obviously, someone's getting older. But there's also kind of, uh, this evolution of because they're having this affair, but they're also living their own lives outside of the affair. So, obviously, one is married. She ends up having a child. Same with he ends up meeting someone and then ends up getting married. But they continue this liaison that they're meeting and going as. I guess they're traveling over the country. Because as an accountant, do you find yourself traveling around the country quite a lot? I mean, I guess she goes to seminars and things like that. She goes to those conferences, which I'm assuming would send you all over the country.
Laura: Yeah. Matt Ross was saying that he wanted jobs specifically that would travel. So he picked that job for her character, which some sort of accountant for big businesses. And then I do believe Chris Messina's job was different, originally written down, but the two of them collaborated on the script together. Matt Ross wrote it, but he collaborated with Chris Messina. And Messina was adamant that he wanted his character to be an, so he picked author, which Matt Ross did not like.
Ryan: I don't like it either. He didn't like it, but Messina was just persistent. It felt like they'd gone with the artist thing up until the point of getting into wardrobe, and then they changed it at the very last minute. And then they start talking about their book because I'm sorry and this is no offense to Messina he doesn't look like he can write much. I don't want us to gloss over the Chocolate Explosion, because when they first meet and then Messina starts talking, and I'm just like, oh, God. He's like a bro.
Laura: Yeah, it's like yo.
Ryan: You think, is anyone sitting here to seek free?
Laura: That's not what he sounds like at all.
Ryan: I mean, it's pretty much he's like, oh, you speak English.
Laura: He keeps asking her if there's anything good to eat there at this restaurant. I assume they're having dinner. But then he just orders a Chocolate Explosion cake. Right.
Ryan: Which immediately makes you think of someone destroying a toilet bowl. Yeah, like violent. Violent.
Laura: Diarrhea, violent chocolate explosion. Genuinely, it goes from this Chocolate Explosion cake straight into a shot of this young woman crying on the bathroom floor next to a toilet, which, obviously, you can only think one thing we had sex.
Ryan: He blew up my toilet with Chocolate Explosion cake.
Laura: Why did I decide to have an affair with this diarrhea dude?
Ryan: And she's been left in tears, like, with this smell, the atrocious smell.
Laura: That horrible chocolate explosion.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, obviously the reason she's crying is that she's come to the realization that she's cheated on her husband. I think that's really, there's a distinct lack of empathy from her side, uh, for any of these men in her life.
Laura: No, I mean, she cries all the time.
Ryan: No, she doesn't.
Laura: She cries constantly. She says, I think I might be a horrible human being.
Ryan: She's not wrong.
Laura: And then there's times where she's saying that I should have left him ages ago.
Laura: But then, Ryan, this movie has a scene where our main character talks about getting a blowjob as a child.
Ryan: Oh, this is going quite far forward, isn't it? Hold on.
Laura: Where is not really?
Ryan: No, it's almost exactly well, I had an issue with Messina's necklace.
Laura: Oh, my gosh. I wrote it way later in my notes because I thought that maybe through the time that we're spending with these characters, like, over the years, that they're having this affair, that he would lose the necklace. And he never did.
Ryan: No, it's like he just continued to wear it. It was kind of like he was into crystals. And you know how we feel about people who are into crystals. Um, well, here's the thing. You immediately kind of feel like, oh, this must be improvised, because they're not talking about anything that's interesting, and there's not really any sort of drama being developed. Like, there's no development within the story to give it a sense of drama other than just like, we're having an affair. Right. And it's like, well, okay, that's fine, but you never see the actual physical impact the affair has on anyone other than just them. Yeah. You're just watching two selfish individuals try and deal with something that they are doing voluntarily. Um, but they do have conversations. I mean, effectively, the film is just made up of them just having conversations about things that are relatively quite random. And some of it's about the relationship, blah, blah, blah.
Laura: So it's pillow talk. It's pillow talk. It's the kind of weird conversations you have post coital, and you kind of get to learn a little bit about each other. You ask about your sexy times.
Ryan: We've all been there. Yeah. Talk about your dildo fantasies.
Laura: Ever been pegged?
Ryan: Yeah. Anything to do with the asshole usually comes up.
Laura: Why not?
Ryan: Um, what does it look like? Do you have a photo? Yeah. Or then you start examining genitals and stuff like that. What does your dick look like when it's soft, that sort of thing.
Laura: Okay. Or you could just ask. He asks her, have you ever been with a woman? And she says no. And he offers up this story about how when he was a boy this.
Ryan: Comes completely out of left field as well. They really kind of perked us up.
Laura: It was intriguing. He said when he was a boy and he would play GI. Joes with his friend. His friend would nurse him back to health like he was a soldier by giving him a blowjob. And then he says something horrific where he says that he couldn't come because he was too young.
Ryan: Yes. And then it just cuts away to a different conversation. And you're like what?
Laura: This movie has a conversation about little boys getting blowjobs and it's like nothing happened.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It's not a crazy thing to say.
Ryan: The power of improv people.
Laura: Yeah. Maybe don't give them that much freedom. Or keep it in the film.
Ryan: Or cut it out. Or just cut that thing out. Because obviously it's way too jarring. You can't have that still in the movie. I don't know. It's like if we had pillow talk and I was just like, yeah, well, one night I hunted down a homeless man and then I took his face and I wore it for about 24 hours. This was great. Right?
Laura: I can't wait to see you again.
Ryan: It's jarring. It's what you would expect the crux of your story to kind of stem from as well is, I guess, divulging trauma. Um, as a young.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. You would imagine that this would have opened up a conversation about childhood traumas.
Ryan: Yeah. Like doubt.
Laura: But they don't and they just change to a different room.
Ryan: They just continue on la di. So, I guess structurally, I guess this is an interesting thing to kind of put out there. But the way this film is kind of put together is, I guess every time there's a major scene change, the room number changes. So I guess that is what's illustrating the transition between all of these different hotel rooms. Hence the transition of extending out time. Yeah, but that's just an editorial thing. That's just kind of how they tell this story.
Laura: There is also a scene in this film where he's painting her toes. I hate it so much. I hate a scene where a man is painting a woman's toes. And it's meant to be intimate and romantic. Yes, but they don't know how to do it. Well. It's always bad.
Ryan: Well, here's the thing. I don't know.
Laura: Have you ever if you're on a trip, who brings polish with you?
Ryan: I mean, to be honest, Laura, it feels like in the writing of this film, in general, they've plucked, uh, out things that they can do, like actions they can enact for these certain scenes to kind of stretch it out a little bit.
Laura: Um, a massage.
Ryan: I mean, I guess something like that.
Laura: You could do. They never did a massage with each other.
Ryan: Have you never done anything? I remember doing that with an ex at some point.
Laura: You painted someone's toes?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Were you good at it?
Ryan: I got better at it with a little bit of tuition. But the thing is, she would also be like, well, that looks like crap. And I was like, well why the fuck did you let me do it? That's kind of the whole point. I was like, I'm sorry. It's rubbish.
Laura: It's not intimate, it's not romantic, it's weird.
Ryan: And she also had kind of gnarled um, uh, toes. Because they keep on pointing it out to the point where on a couple of her tiny little toes doesn't look like she has any nails whatsoever.
Laura: No. And they use that in order for us to know that she was a dancer at one point in her life.
Ryan: Or maybe she wasn't. She wouldn't answer the questions, though. She wouldn't answer them. So he kept on kind of bringing stuff up and she'd be like she m just kind of hummed her way through the whole thing. That does not negate the fact that those toes were kind of gnarled, nonexistent, horrible little things kind of go, I've got pretty gnarled up. Toes.
Laura: Why are we talking about toes?
Ryan: I don't know. Because it was like the moment is.
Laura: When during this scene he explains that it'll completely turn him off if a woman has funky toes, yet he still loves her.
Ryan: Uh, okay.
Laura: Just saying.
Ryan: Well, that is the meaning of true love though, isn't it?
Laura: Even those ugly toes are beautiful to him.
Ryan: Yeah, I guess. Because love m it's not really love, is it's? Sex?
Laura: They love each other just because they.
Ryan: Declare they love each other, it's purely because they're having sex with each other. They just seem to love each other.
Laura: You don't think if they really loved.
Ryan: Each other they would get together and they would make steps and moves to make it work. But they're just kind of going through this perpetual cycle of just pretending that this is what they want, when really in actuality, that's not what they want at all.
Laura: If it was, they probably would have tried harder.
Ryan: Of course they would have tried harder. That's also kind of the main motivation of the movie is, uh, that that kind of destination, that goal for them is completely unattainable.
Laura: It is attainable. But they just keep convincing themselves that it's not because it's harder for them to face the reality of their marriage situation.
Ryan: It's easier for them to get married to different people and have children with those people than it is to just commit to each other and just continue this horrible cycle of having an unrequited relationship and then forever doubt themselves. And then on their deathbed, like completely regret that decision later on. Oh my God, I loved you so much. Why didn't I just stay with you? It's like, give me a break.
Laura: Well, the director is trying to pose an idea. What happens if you meet someone else in life that you love? And can you love more than one person at the same time? Is it different love? Uh, is it false? And what do you do? Because I don't think that she meant to fall in love with this person. I don't think he meant to fall in love with her either. But they kept forcing themselves into this situation, making it way more difficult. If you just had a one off, a toodley do, and then it's over, then it's fine. You can kind of think it away, I guess. It's not fine. It still shouldn't do that.
Ryan: Yeah. You shouldn't be cheating on your spouse if you're cheating.
Laura: I don't know. I'm blowing up cheaters out here. But I think that if you're cheating, there's obviously fundamentally something wrong with your own relationship. Unless it's an agreed upon thing. I don't know. I don't know.
Ryan: Yes. Well, the thing is, we're in the year 2023 now. So I mean, you can the options, the possibilities are endless.
Laura: Right. Of course, if you haven't agreed upon a situation where you can see other people, then obviously do that. But these people are in monogamous relationships.
Ryan: Or at least they know what they're doing.
Laura: That would upset their partners.
Ryan: It's also it's also kind of falls under the kind of trophy, um like trophy affair movies in general. I don't know if affairs are as elaborate and as dramatic or as interesting as this one seemingly tries to be. I just kind of feel like it's either shit or get off the pot. You know what I mean?
Laura: Because they do it a lot. It's every fifth hotel room. They're having a conversation about it, where you see it in time, where he is seeing somebody, and then he breaks up with her, and then he's seeing somebody else. And then it gets serious. And she urges him to marry this woman.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And she says it's never going to work for us. But then there's times where she goes back and says, I should never have married him. There is a scene, and I know that we're jumping around, um, there's not.
Ryan: Really a structure to this movie because every single scene, for the most part, follows exactly what we've just spoken about.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: They're all really much the same.
Laura: Yeah, they're all pretty similar. Except for that One Clockwork Orange scene. It's all sped up.
Ryan: It's the one scene that stands out like a sore thumb. And, uh, it's after a period of a lull where they're like, we can't see each other anymore, but then they can't stop seeing each other. So then they end up just going back at it again.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And it's kind of like after you've seen that two or three times, from smaller moments in the scenes to bigger moments that have slightly more dramatic effect. You're kind of getting a little bit bored and tired of it. And this film is only 88 minutes long, and it feels like it's 2 hours by the 55 minutes mark or yeah, that was how I felt when.
Laura: We looked at the timer moment where he started screaming.
Ryan: I almost started crying. Yeah. I was getting very bored of it by that point.
Laura: Well, would you like to talk about a scene that happens about 36 minutes and 5 seconds into the film?
Ryan: Uh, I was going to talk about the pubes. There was a bit where you saw her pubes and you just started screaming pubes when we saw the pubes.
Laura: Did yeah. Uh, you don't get to lay your eyes upon that as much as maybe one would imagine.
Ryan: I mean, to be fair, I'm not particularly interested in seeing ladies pubes or man pubes in general. Like, I'm not a fan of my own pubes. I mean, to be fair, I just thought it was hilarious that you kind of just started screaming pubes.
Laura: Well, yeah, because usually in these films, I mean, we've seen so many of these at this point where yeah. Kind of seeing pubes, uh, is exciting now.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: On a woman mhm.
Ryan: I mean, I guess so. I guess so.
Laura: Get out the pubes. Excited to see them.
Ryan: We're talking about pubes. We definitely see some pubes coming up, like, right now.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Um, it's hard to explain when this comes in. I know that it's about it's 36 minutes into the film, but there is a scene that I think people most if you know about this film, that this is the most recognizable scene from the film, where they get out onto the balcony of their hotel and they.
Ryan: Are naked, um, hoping it's the balcony because they had been on the roof earlier.
Laura: They're on the balcony of their hotel room. They're a balcony and they're drinking wine. And I do believe that when they were filming this, they were also just getting drunk and drinking wine during the scene. It's quite relaxed. So they get drunk and then they get a little bit fancy. And this whole thing, I believe, was Christmasina's, uh, idea. Let's take our clothes off. Let's just get out there and let's dance, and let's just do this thing.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: So they get out onto the balcony and they're dancing. And then there's a point where he half kind of jumps onto the ledge of the balcony, which really freaked me out yeah. Because he's drunk. But then he starts yelling down at the people on the street and just asking, did your lives turn out just the way you thought it would?
Ryan: Yeah. That was annoying.
Laura: You thought it well, I thought it.
Ryan: Was a little annoying.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: He's kind of saying it from a position of power. And it's obvious he's you think it's.
Laura: Out of a position of power?
Ryan: Of course it is. It's not like that moment in almost Famous, where he's like, I am a golden god. Like, he's all fucked up and shit. And you're just like, wow, that's pathetic. But the thing is, uh, he's projecting his own self to these people that he's asking the question for because he's not happy with his own life.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Well, I don't think it's out of a position of power. I think it's out of a position.
Ryan: I'm pretty sure the way that I.
Laura: Said or out of control.
Ryan: Yeah. The way I said it was incorrect.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: I'm admitting that now.
Laura: Very strong of you to admit when.
Ryan: You'Re that is yes. I mean, I'm always wrong.
Laura: Um, anyway, so he's dancing around, they're both naked and yeah. This is the penis scene.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, it's fine.
Laura: And I guess in a question of whether or not it needs to be there, I don't know. Uh, it probably could have gotten away with it not being there.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I guess so. Contextually. I mean, this is a film about two people who meet up to have sex, right. And when the film started and the way that the film is kind of structured, um, at least from the off, like from the opening moment, it's like we're fucking. And then it just kind of continues down that thing. It's not particularly sexy. And the sex kind of just stops at one point where you don't really see any sex. There's not a lot of nudity. So really it's all kind of front loaded. I would say the film.
Laura: Right, because if you're going in the context of how the relationship was purely based on the physical aspects of their relationship, which turns into more of a relationship yes.
Ryan: The emotions start to seep in a little bit more.
Laura: Yeah. Which is why, I suppose, they keep their clothes on a little bit more.
Laura: Well, I brought the end.
Ryan: I brought up the Winterbot Movie, um, nine songs because I brought up Code 46 and stuff earlier on. Nine Songs, which is effectively just two people having sex set to a, uh, music festival. So kind of structurally it's a little bit different, but at the same time, I was like, is this what this film is? Is kind of like it's unrated. It's going to have, um, this sense of this relationship, this affair. It's going to be incredibly m uh, candid. And uh, we're going to have these kind of messy conversations and it's just basically going to be very much focused on the sexual element, which this film just kind of doesn't have, really. That kind of just stuff starts to kind of dissolve and disappear after a while.
Laura: What, the sex?
Ryan: The sexy stuff? Yeah.
Laura: Well, yeah, like I was saying, I think it's just simply because it turned into more of them getting together because they had fallen in love and they didn't know what to do ah. About that. It became less about the sex. There was a moment where he shows up at the hotel room late because his flight was delayed and she's just asleep, and he makes jokes about, uh, doing, like, a sleep creep on her.
Ryan: Yeah, well, he does bring that up. Well, the thing is, we're glossing over the rest of the dick scene, though.
Laura: I know I'm going to come back to it.
Ryan: There is that bit where they're back in the hotel room, and then I got a little bit of a fright because he just kind of pops up from the side of the door and he's still completely stark bullet naked.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. And I was like, oh, Joe Pooh penis.
Laura: Well, I'm trying to think about it in the way that is this necessary? Does it need to be here? Does it add to the film? And I do think that this film is aiming to know the truth or give you kind of a real look into a character study of these two people who are forming this bond.
Ryan: I would feel the film would be far better if it was more candid, if it was a little bit more open, if they were kind of doing this improvisational approach to the whole thing, that they would kind of throw with the punches and just kind of do what they wanted. And then the conversations themselves and how they develop and how the relationship would develop. There would be a lot more weight to what they were seeing and how they were performing if the restraints were kind of taken off a little bit. Because you do feel like there's a level of restraint with the film from start to finish.
Laura: Right. I do think that they maybe hung on to the script a little bit more than I would have expected, uh, when they're meant to be a little bit more liberal about. But but in terms of the nudity, I know that Chris Messina was saying that he found it to be liberating and also finding an actor to play against him that was willing to be that open with the nudity was, uh, Marin Ireland.
Ryan: Marin Ireland. Yeah.
Laura: Uh, so I do think that if you're having two people and that the story is about them getting together and having this physical relationship, that turns into more emotional, that having them be clothed or covered the whole time would be a little bit strange.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, and it would be a cop out. I think if it was strictly female.
Ryan: Nudity, it would be a huge cop mean. I'm going to put this out there. If the film was European or South American or from any other part of the world, it wasn't the UK or the US. This film would be unremarkable in those circles. You see that sort of liberalism in that kind of cinema.
Laura: Um, I was reading some reviews where it was saying that this is basically a foreign film yeah. But made in America. If this had French subtitles, everyone would.
Ryan: Go, oh, wow, yeah.
Laura: Amazing.
Ryan: That deep. Yeah. That's kind of what I was getting at when we were watching it was that it's distinctly unremarkable. But if it was, say, I don't want to use the word foreign, but if it was from a different region other than, let's say, the two main regions of the world and the art that they create is incredibly conservative, it might have had a little bit more of a feeling of liberation about it. Uh, and I feel like this is maybe a film that has been made in France or Europe or South America or, uh, any other part of the world that's not the US. Or the UK. Um, and it's probably better, or at least it's handled a little bit more, uh, with a candid nature, a little bit more of an open nature. So I don't know.
Ryan: It's hard to kind of talk about this movie and talk about the story, and we're kind of just, like, picking out moments of the thing, because, again, there's no real kind of driving force other than this back and forth to and throw of, uh, will they get together? Will they not get together? All their lives are developing. She now has a baby. She's now falling asleep because she's hold on a second.
Laura: Hold on a second.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: There are things that happen in the film, and you were just saying how she had a baby, right. So that's a pretty intense moment that happens in the film that just because of how it's set up, packs less of a punch. It's another one of those, oh, I got a blowjob when I was a child from another young boy. Um, and you gloss over it, and then the scene's over there is another scene where she is telling him that she's pregnant and she's going to have the baby with her husband, and she tells him that she wishes it was his. So that's a big deal. That's a big deal when you're having this really, really long term affair with somebody and you're getting quite intimate and they are an integral part of their lives, and you're telling them you're going to have a baby, and that's kind of it. Well, she talks about her child later on, and, uh, her child becomes a really big part of her life, but.
Ryan: It doesn't the motherly instinct kicks in. Well, the thing is, let's extrapolate that moment then, a little bit, right? So for him, the birth of her child is the death of their future, of their relationship. That's basically what's meant to feel like what's happening there.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: She's putting the death nail in being like, well, no, I can't get rid of the father because he's the father. And for you saying to me, oh, I wish you were the father, it's just a kick in the teeth. And the thing is a lot like and it's not to defend the man in this situation. But a lot of their major decisions uh, she's already married by the time they have an affair. So a lot of responsibility is put on her shoulders to effectively be the better person and to call off, because Messina at this point, he's a traveling writer, he's got girlfriends, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To me, he is not committing the serious crime. Now, later on, he is married, he is committing a crime. They're continuing this whole relationship. They're basically on Level Peggings at one point. But to me, her stance on this whole thing and certainly when she brings up the fact that she's having a kid, I find that whole situation, that moment in the movie to be incredibly cruel.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And I find her to be the most selfish. If we're on, like a, uh, gradient scale selfish behavior.
Laura: He asks her several times, why don't we just do it right now? They had the opportunities, and I keep bringing up and I brought it up while we were talking about the film, and I think it's a Louis CK. Sketch. And it's about how if you it's.
Ryan: It'S like we bring him up sparingly on this podcast for obvious reasons.
Laura: Yeah. I'll have to make sure it's actually.
Ryan: His his I might have just made it up. I have no idea.
Laura: Well, it's talking about when you want to break up with someone and you're dating someone, you kind of want to break up, but then you somehow make it worse by moving in with them, and then you want to break up with them, and then you make it worse by getting married, and then it continues on. Then you end up having a kid, and then you have a kid, and then you want to get a divorce, and it just makes everything messier. It's. Just pull that Band Aid off. If you're not happy in your relationship, just get it over with because you're hurting so many people. You're not just hurting yourself and your partner. Uh, there's more people involved than that.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: I mean, focus on yourself. Make yourself happy. But it just seems yeah, she does kind of seem she shows remorse and she cries about it, but she still continues on in this dalliance, and it's.
Ryan: Hard to be doesn't really sympathetic. Yeah, it's hard to be sympathetic to her tears when she's kind of going around saying, like, I think I'm a horrible person. It's like, honestly, you sound like a liar. It just doesn't ring true. And it's a lot of this lack of attraction towards kind of these two main characters, at least for me, because.
Laura: There are blow ups that happen strictly on Messina's part, where he is frustrated at the situation and he's screaming at her because she's not texting him back. It really does seem like she is in it just for the sex a lot of the time.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much. He's obviously looking for an emotional attachment to this person.
Laura: And she's sparingly giving out any information about herself.
Ryan: He originally is the first one to say that he loves her, and then that spurs her to say it back.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: But yeah, it doesn't really ring true when, I guess the rest of the mumbling conversations continue. And they have arguments, sparing arguments.
Laura: Obviously, it is rough, some of the arguments they have. And I mean, I was saying to you because you'd said, I would never speak to you like that. And I go, yeah, it would be divorce. He's hitting walls and he's screaming in her face simply, um, because she didn't text him back.
Ryan: Yeah. It was all about a text message.
Laura: I'm like oh, no.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I don't adhere to that type of.
Ryan: Violence, but I guess, uh, obviously I wouldn't speak to you that way.
Ryan: I was going to say we're in a relationship. We're married. Our relationship has comparatively certainly in my own life, has been such an easy going and a natural experience for me.
Laura: Thanks, dear, for these people.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, it doesn't need explaining. It's like when we decided to get married, we just had an off the cuff conversation about it and we were just like, well, that seems like the natural progression of what we're going to do. Not to feel robotic about it, but to us, we've never really suffered any surprises in our lives in this relationship, you know what I mean? We've just kind of dealt with it as adults and we're kind of doing it.
Laura: It's almost as though in their relationship in the film, that they never established those type of rules or boundaries do. Um, you know what I mean? So that's why she is kind of keeping it close to the chest and he is just exploding because they've never had that type of time to understand what her boundary lines are and what his are.
Ryan: No.
Laura: So I think that people would typically have those if they spent more time together. He says at one point, I get you one, two, maybe three days, and then I don't see you for so long.
Ryan: Yeah. But also, I kind of feel like they're not setting up those boundaries because they're just not taking the relationship seriously enough either.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: Especially not certainly, since it's predicated on the fact that even later on into the film's life cycle, effectively, is that it is predicated purely on the sex thing, which is when we bring up jokes about the sleep creeping, because that's all he seems to be interested in is he's just going to have sex with her while she's asleep?
Laura: Oh, no. I do really think that he wanted more out of it, which is why those kind of explosive emotional reactions from him, they do come out of left field a bit. They feel a little bit out of place in the film because she is so muted most of the time.
Ryan: Uh, yeah.
Ryan: Back to this riveting piece of drama.
Laura: There is a moment so they start kind of asking each other a little bit more about their relationships and they start little by little, kind of giving each other more information. There's a moment later on in the film, really quite close to the end, where he asks her, how does my penis compare to your husband's?
Ryan: Yeah, that's a bit weird.
Laura: And I think she just kind of giggles and I go, dude, if you're in that type of situation, keep it to yourselves. You don't need to know about her husband, you don't need to know about her kids.
Ryan: Well, I think he's being deliberately combative, though.
Laura: Oh no, of course. Because it's a dick measuring contest. He says it right in the beginning of the film when she calls him to have another tryst and he's like, is it because of my penis? Because you missed my beautiful penis? Or whatever.
Ryan: Yeah, he's a class act.
Laura: Um, I laughed when he said it, but still I can't feel good for her.
Ryan: No, that's the thing. It's like unrequited bonerage. This is all this kind of is it just continues for months and months and months and months and they just torture each other. Yeah, years just torture each other as they're going through their own relationships because they obviously need relationships.
Laura: Even a moment where she's on the bed with him and she's on the phone with her husband and on the phone with her child. It's just a casual thing. M. And that's rough for me. Uh, it's like you have your husband on your ear so close to you while another man's kind of draped around your body like, oofed, that's just rough.
Ryan: It is pretty rough. And I mean, I think yeah, well, they are suffering. They're suffering through this moment that they're just like they're feeling so guilted and guilty of the situation and what they're putting people yeah, I mean, the people in their lives are none the wiser. Um, which tends to be the case with most affairs. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been cheated on yourself, Laura, but I definitely have done.
Laura: If I have, I never found out.
Ryan: Yes, and I guess that is the crux of, uh, what's going on there. I mean, what else is there to cover here?
Laura: I genuinely have one more thing, two things I want to say before we I have fun facts for you about.
Ryan: Her scolding her hand. No, she does do that. That's such a trophy thing as well. She's like, I feel terrible about myself and she tries to scold her hand under the hot tap. I'm like, right? Okay, whatever. Give me a break.
Laura: That was weird. There is a second moment where the man blows up. It's man and woman, by the way. They don't have names, so it's man, woman. Classic. But there is that last moment where he blows up at her because they have an appointment to meet up at a conference she's doing, but her husband comes along. And so she has to run to the man's room and go, listen, we can't have sexy times because my husband showed up. And the man goes, well, we need to tell him now. It's over. Let's tell him. Let's get this out of the way. Let's get this whole ship assailing so we can be together. And she just says, I'm never going to leave him. I thought you knew that by now. I'm never going to leave him. The man freaks out. He just absolutely blows up. But he's like punching walls. He is pushing her with all of his might out the door. I hated it so much. You're physically being violent with her at this point.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I don't know. She kept saying she's never going to leave her husband. I'm like, maybe you're making the right decision. Because this guy seems like he's out of control. He calls her a cunt.
Ryan: Yeah, but here's the thing. She comes back and I mean, not to reference the end of the movie, but they make a decision like, ah, a pact to within six months time, be together full time.
Laura: I highly doubt that.
Ryan: Well, I guess that, like I say, there's obviously, uh, this continuous vicious, uh, circle that they have found themselves in of ordering, um, exploding chocolate cake and continuing on with this facade that everything's okay in their lives. Um, but yeah, that seems weird. Anyway, there's a strange shot that holds on her. Obviously, they couldn't get a shot of her just turning to look at, um, him. So they did it in reverse of him. Obviously a shot of her looking away from him, which looks odd as fuck.
Laura: That was very strange.
Ryan: Ah, yeah. You ever see someone blinking in reverse? You can tell.
Laura: Weird thing to have happened. Do you know how many hours of footage they had to edit?
Ryan: Probably thousands.
Laura: Uh, like 49.
Ryan: They had 49 hours of footage?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: That's not a lot for a feature. For, uh, an 88 minutes feature. That's not a lot.
Laura: Okay, well, I thought that was a lot.
Ryan: Oh, uh, no, I'm not a filmmaker. No, that's like child's play in comparison to some filmmakers who they had different.
Laura: Endings that they filmed. They didn't even know what the movie was going to look like when they finally had it together. They had several different endings. They had different content.
Ryan: Because this film just kind of ends, correct? Yeah. It just kind of ends because it started as a kind of wandering mess. It ends as a bit of a wandering mess with some level of resolution. I say that in very commas resolution. Uh, yeah.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: Ah, it's a claustrophobic piece of filmmaking. But the thing at the heart of it, the fundamental crux of the film is their relationship. And I just don't think it's great.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Yeah. Just don't think it's great. It doesn't ring true. Um, but yeah, at one point, I mean, I don't know, I kind of lost myself in the movie. Um, a point where he's got, like, a shirt he's got one of those funny shirts on that hangs really loose, and it has one of those loose polyester pockets that if you were to put anything in it because it's obviously really small as well. So if you put anything in there, it's falling out. It's falling out. If you bend over, it's falling out. If you sit down, it's falling out. If you lie on your bed you.
Laura: Are not a fan of useless pockets?
Ryan: Fuck, no. It should always have a lid. And I had, uh, a button just so in case you find yourself in a scenario where you're getting jostled or moved around or know, bend over to flush the toilet. If you put a phone in there, drops right up. It's like only a third of your phone is in, uh, that pocket. And obviously it's useless. It's a useless pocket.
Laura: It's fashion, Ryan.
Ryan: Fashion.
Laura: It's called fashion.
Ryan: Fashion. Well, someone has to, uh, get on the phone of Messina and be like, what were you thinking when you put that toy?
Laura: They probably brought their own clothes.
Ryan: Yeah, probably. He'd be like, Well, I was in you've got mail, fool. What have you done? All right. Okay. Sorry, Chris. Christ.
Laura: So I have some fun facts about the movie. Are you excited? So I'm very excited about this specifically because of who is involved. But, uh, Chris Messina and Matt Ross are very good friends with Sam Rockwell.
Ryan: Oh, good.
Laura: And so Ross had written kind of a spec script where the character was drunk the whole movie. And Ross asked Sam Rockwell if he was interested in doing it. Uh, but Sam Rockwell had just played, like, three drunk dudes in films in a row.
Ryan: Okay?
Laura: So he goes, well, what about Chris? And they were kind of casual friends at the time. Like, Messina and Matt Ross were acquaintances, but they became good friends and they spoke together. They didn't want to do that particular drunken script, so they started on 28 hotel rooms together, so they collaborated on it. And that's how this film kind of came together.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Um, the filming took 18 days, and Matt Ross said that the idea of kind of shooting this film in a nontraditional manner came from when he worked on that George Clooney film, Good Night and Good Luck, that George Clooney directed that movie's.
Ryan: Good.
Laura: Yeah. So he's in that film. And so I guess one day they were all sitting together, kind of, uh, like the supporting cast, and George Clooney came over. He goes, I know you guys have the script, but why don't you just wing it? Just kind of do whatever. And they were all horrified. And they kind of kept sticking to the script for the most part. And then George Clooney is like, seriously, guys, just have fun. You know, your characters, just do whatever you want. So it became a thing with that particular film where the main cast was scripted traditionally and he ended up getting the whole supporting cast to basically improvise a lot of their stuff.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: For good night and good luck. So he liked that. So he wanted to kind of bring that type of thing into this film.
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, it's a double edged sword, though, because I've done similar things to that, where you have to give people enough to work from, but then to just kind of simply be like, wing it, see what you can do. It can be a fucking disaster. And for the most part, it is. You end up shooting footage that you don't need to shoot.
Laura: Yeah, well, that's what happened.
Ryan: You're like, I never really want to use it. And you're just kind of like, well, okay. So you always have to when you're doing that improvisation stuff, or at least that's the way I kind of feel you do it, is you give them a starting marker and you give them an ending marker and you try and feed them things in between so that you're giving it a journey. Because then otherwise it's like the film Jerry, I think we brought up last time, it's just two folk wandering around in the desert, not really fucking doing anything. And it just kind of to you kind of have to be a little bit more structured with it. And I don't know, you can tell if something's improvised. And this film is almost 100% has the air of that improvisation stuff in it.
Laura: Well, um, he attributed his kind of style and inspiration for this film on, uh, John Cassavettis and Mike Lee.
Ryan: That's fine. But that is a hell of a lofty goal to kind of set yourself to be on there on stage with the likes of fucking Mike Lee and John Cassavettis, two very accomplished filmmakers. And also I'm going to put this out there as well. I know quite a lot about Mike Lee, and I know probably a lot more about John Casaveras and their processes and stuff like that. But it's not as simple as just saying to someone, wing it. And then gold seems to happen. That does not happen with those guys whatsoever.
Laura: We're making assumptions about what it was like on set. I don't know how they got through this.
Ryan: Yeah, who knows?
Laura: I doubt he said wing it.
Ryan: Uh, I hope not.
Laura: Don't forget that this man has worked with the likes of Scorsese and John Wu.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: Clooney.
Ryan: Clooney. John Wu. Clooney. Um, who else is he fucking?
Laura: All the big ones.
Ryan: Um, mary. Harrin.
Laura: Ah.
Ryan: Who did American Psycho? Um, five stars. Who else? Who's he fucking worked with? Terry Gilliam.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Well, I don't know. Can you read that quote that he says? It kind of irritates me slightly of. His transition from being an actor to being a director. That quote kind of irritates me slightly.
Laura: I don't know if I have it written down. Did I say it to you earlier?
Ryan: You did say it to me earlier. And I was just kind of like.
Laura: Oh, well, because he started out as a stage actor and someone had asked him, how did you transition from acting into directing? He goes, Well, I've worked with these directors and being an actor, I don't know, he said something like that. What was annoying about that?
Ryan: I think it was just kind of more like, well, you know what, it would be easier for you when you've got access to these well established, credible directors out there to make that viable transition into being a director yourself. Of course you would. Of course. You know, it's like, oh, I've worked with Scorsese Gilliam and things, and I felt like I could give it a go as an actor. Well, you're already within those circles, sir. Of course you can. It's not out with the realms of possibility for you to do very much. It's very much kind of clues into me. Uh, it's the who, you know, in the industry, it's not what you know, it doesn't really matter what you know, it's who can put you in the right door at the right time to give you that opportunity.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: But, uh, yeah, I don't know.
Ryan: We're yet to cover Captain Fantastic. I don't know if it's at the same levels of what 28 hotel rooms is, but uh, I want to tell you right now, as debuts go, 28 hotel rooms, uh, is a little dull.
Laura: Captain Fantastic is exactly like it says in the title. It's fantastic.
Ryan: Okay?
Laura: It's Captain, uh, did you this does not have any awards. Just want to throw that out there.
Ryan: So we can do our surprise. Uh, well, no, I did have that one thing. You remember that scene where, um, there's music playing in the hotel room? We weren't too sure where the music was actually coming from, but then I thought someone's phone was ringing.
Laura: That was a terrible song.
Ryan: It was really bad. I had a kind of systematic beeping in it that kind of sounded a little bit like a pager or like a, uh, very old text tone on like a Nokia 32 ten in terms.
Laura: Of sound design or soundtrack score, there isn't really much of anything.
Ryan: It's because it's trying to depict real life. Laura.
Laura: There's two instances of songs.
Ryan: There's not a soundtrack to your life. It's not like you walk into the kitchen and you hear bum bum bum, um, bum bum, um, bum bum, bum, bum bum, um I really hope that.
Laura: That sound would never happen if I was walking around the house. I'd be especially to the kitchen. Right? M.
Ryan: Exactly. There is no well, yeah, we could go into a debate about diegetic and non diegetic sound and stuff. Like that, but we don't need to. This is the thing that debate and we're not going to go into it just now, but soaps do that really well. At least UK soaps do that really well to characterize their environment and that you hear a song playing on a radio and stuff like that. That stuff really helps to flesh out moments and make them feel more real, which is what probably could have happened in this movie.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: So in terms of rating, I'll go ahead and go first if you're ready.
Ryan: Uh, yes, you go first. So you can be the sounding the sounding bar to my, uh I'm just.
Laura: Going to do them both.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So in terms of the visibility and context for that male nudity, I'm going to give it a four.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Give it a four.
Ryan: Because there were times only scene in the movie of any worth.
Laura: Yeah. Well, it does happen twice, which I didn't actually catch the second time, which is kind of why I downgraded a little bit. I go, okay. There's two scenes.
Ryan: It's kind of a continuation of that moment. Or two shots different. Yeah. It's a continuation.
Laura: The balcony scene, I really liked. I enjoyed it, I had fun with it. It was nice almost, for once, to see these characters just like, letting loose. Because if you're having an affair, you want it to be an affair. You want to have fun.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Your inhibitions are you're letting loose floaty. M. You're being your true self with somebody else. You have no responsibilities in this moment. You're completely free. And these people are totally free. They're naked, they're dancing, they're drinking and they're having a great time. So for that, I can appreciate that. That seemed like a great time. It seemed like something I would like to do.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Just get out there on a tall building and just shake my rump a little bit and scream at people on the street. M. I don't know, it sounds like fun. So, four stars. Um, again, I think we talked about it a little bit earlier in terms of is it necessary? Did it need to be there? I do agree it would be a bit of a cop out if you have too much female nudity to not reciprocate that. I think that is unfair.
Ryan: Yeah. But this film doesn't really do that anyway, I don't think.
Laura: No. Uh, despite how they are naked quite a bit, I never found it to be gratuitous.
Ryan: No. There's not an imbalance.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Well, there could have been more of it.
Laura: That's true.
Ryan: Yeah. That's probably my only argument with it.
Laura: I do think if you're in a hotel room, you act differently in hotel rooms as well. And it's not just about the affair, but when you're in a hotel room, you do things a little bit differently. It's not like you're at home.
Ryan: I wouldn't feel the need to get dressed.
Laura: No.
Ryan: If that's what I was doing, I would be naked the entire time.
Laura: You open the door, you beep, beep your key. You pop in there, you close that little security lock, clothes are off, and you're just naked in your hotel room.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much.
Laura: Uh, yeah, you are right. There probably could have been more from his end.
Ryan: It could be slightly more liberal and a little bit more, uh, liberating in the way that because it just feels like the scenes themselves feel like they're blocked in such a manner that doesn't really let them run loose enough. And for a lot of the times, a lot of it because it's mostly conversations, you're just focused on midshots of them or close ups of their face. And it's kind of like, right, okay. And it didn't seem like they were going for a specific rating. There's nothing particularly gratuitous in the stories that they're telling other than the, uh, left field ones that we heard when we're watching the movie about like child abuse and stuff fucking. It's never brought up again. Um, this isn't like Clerks, let's put it that way. Where a lot of the gratuity comes from the filth that they're spouting right here, it's not really that. It's not really any of that happening.
Ryan: So you kind of wonder what was the direction they were trying to take it in? And why did they feel the need to set such firm boundaries on themselves when it felt like this film kind of really could have blossomed from being a little bit more liberating, which is.
Laura: Interesting because of how the director wanted it to be and, uh, especially how Chris Messina wanted it to be. The original intention was to be free, loose, liberal, and really kind of get down to a character study of these two people in this situation. So I agree with you. I think they could have pushed those boundaries a little bit more, certainly when.
Ryan: It'S just a series of scenes set in rooms with four walls on them and a door.
Laura: Yeah, make it bigger. I mean, you're in such an enclosed environment.
Ryan: And I don't mean take it out of the hotel rooms. They kind of take it out the hotel rooms sometimes. And there's obviously only so much you can do in the hallways of these hotel rooms.
Laura: Like punch exit signs.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, we've all done funky shit at the same time. I'm also you're in a hotel.
Laura: You act different in a hotel. That's what I'm saying.
Ryan: You're an actor. There's a space that you're able to perform in, allow them to perform in that space. Unless maybe it was the cinematographer who was making sure that, look, if you exit this particular part of here, then you're going to be out of the light and you're not going to be seen as much. But it looked like it was being lit relatively quite naturally with just the practicals and whatever was coming in from the windows. So I don't really fully understand why the framing and the staging had to feel so constrained.
Laura: I'm wondering if there's just a lot of really cool, natural scenes that we aren't getting because they didn't feel like it pushed the story anywhere, potentially.
Ryan: But unfortunately, what they did include didn't really push the story anywhere either. So I'm kind of just like, uh for me, I don't know, I feel like I kind of say my piece with it. It should go further.
Laura: Which brings me to my rating of a healthy 2.5.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So I think I've explained why.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Would you like to go, Ryan?
Ryan: Uh, in terms of the context and the visibility and things, I've already kind of explained that. But I would probably give it like maybe a three and a half. I think it's fine. I think the film would benefit from having more of it. And I think at that point it would be a little bit more memorable if it did have more nudity in it. But let's say it took more of a Bertelucci approach where it kind of has a balance of male versus female, so it doesn't feel too kind of female exploitative in that kind of sense. Yeah.
Laura: Uh, it definitely would have been more beneficial to have that casual nudity, especially.
Ryan: Casual hotel nudity, just normal. That stuff is relatively quite natural. That's something I would do. That's something you would do. That's something we do do together.
Laura: We do do.
Ryan: We do. And if you're a couple, unless you've put very firm boundaries on your relationship in real life and that it's like, well, I'm never going to see her know, like all that sort of stuff. I mean, it's fine. Matthew, open the door just a little wider.
Laura: I don't know why this reminded me you were talking about casual nudity and boundaries on your relationship. I remember when I was dating this guy, um, just out of high school, and he was going to bring me over to his parents house. And he goes, I got to just stand outside for a second. I got to go inside and make sure my dad's not naked.
Ryan: Oh, wow. Okay.
Laura: Middle of the day. And I was like, what? Because that was never this young man I was seeing at the time saw his dad naked constantly.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And that was never, ever something that happened in my house.
Ryan: No, ever.
Laura: Which I found fascinating. So anyway, casual nudity, people do it well. That's even around their children.
Ryan: To be honest, that's kind of a step beyond what we are talking about.
Laura: I know. It just reminded me of it.
Ryan: It's a little creepy. I'm not going to kind of put it yeah, it's a little weird. Um, that's kind of like one step removed from the family in Texas Chainsaw. But anyway, look, no. So, I mean, I settle on, uh, the same rating as you do for the movie.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Straight down the middle. 2.5. I do think some of the stuff looks nice. Yeah, I think the intention is kind of there. It's just a shame that it's just not there could be a story there. There could be more to it than just we're having an affair and the conflict that comes from having the affair. There could have been a lot more exploding chocolate pudding. There could have been all sorts of different things that they could have done with it. And I think there's films of this type that just do it better. I would say a better adaptation of this kind of idea. And I mean, we've seen it already once before, but it's like scenes of a marriage, I would say is a far more riveting experience about the dismantling of a relationship, in this case, obviously a marriage. And you can take either version, the Bergman version, or the modern day version with uh, Oscar Isaac and uh, Jessica Chastain.
Laura: So I think you're right, and I agree that there's a lot more that could have happened and I do think that there's a good story there. But maybe the execution isn't as good. But it's a good effort, I suppose.
Ryan: Yeah, it gets a B for effort.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, I guess there are some it's a strong C plus.
Laura: It's a good first try.
Ryan: It's a good first.
Laura: We get to try in a couple of weeks what his second effort looks like.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And we get to talk about Vigo again.
Ryan: Yay.
Laura: Yay. Anyway.
Laura: Well, thank you, Ryan. Um, I'm happy to be here with you in the coming years, our third year that we're starting doing this podcast.
Ryan: This will be its second full year.
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: Um, since we started in the middle of uh, 2000 and uh, 21.
Laura: We sure did. Thanks for hanging on with us, guys. It's so nice. And ah, we hope you enjoy our New Year's resolution.
Ryan: Yeah, I think that's honestly genius. Um, we came up with that one.
Laura: Yeah, it's really good.
Ryan: But uh yeah, no thank you for uh, dealing with our ramblings and our musings almost to the exact same length that this movie shit.
Laura: We did it again. Really thought we were going to be shorter this time. Well, anyway, coming to you from room 195, let's say, who cares?
Ryan: I don't think that was an actual room, was it?
Laura: Coming to you from room 1743.
Ryan: They had rooms that were higher up. They never had ground floor rooms.
Laura: Oh yeah. It's not a motel.
Ryan: It's not a motel.
Laura: Coming to you from room 675.
Ryan: Coming from they wouldn't have a six. One of the several 28 hotel rooms because we need to shut this.
Laura: No, they have a 6th floor. They don't have a 13th floor.
Ryan: Cool. Most hotels don't have a 13th floor.
Laura: I mean, it exists.
Ryan: It exists, but they don't list it. They don't list it. Which is so strange because of the fucking horrible deaths.
Laura: Um, I have been Laura Ryan. Thanks, guys. And we will catch you on the next yes. Yay hooray.
Ryan: Have you not seen Dark Water? Isn't that exactly what that is about? Like, there's bad shit, it ends up in a water tower. You've seen that movie?
Laura: No. We did watch that movie. We watched both of them.
Ryan: And the Cecil Motel. Um um, documentary. Yeah, about the true story of the poor girl.
Laura: Anyway, does that have anything to do with the 13th floor? I thought that's just a superstition on the number 13.
Ryan: Here's the thing. We'll probably cut this stuff out. It doesn't really matter. But anyway, ah, there was a creepy pasta online about this elevator trick. Um, and that's what they linked that creepy pasta to that poor girl who ended up finding herself. Uh oh, my gosh.
Laura: So if you type in number 13 superstition into the Internet search, it says, some believe this is unlucky because one of those 13, Judas Iscariot was the betrayer of Jesus Christ, which you guys, we just watched Dracula 2000 the other night.
Ryan: We're not going to spoil it for you.
Laura: So freaking good.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: If you guys haven't seen Dracula 2000, I mean, we just watched it so good. It's streaming online. You'll get it when you watch it.
Ryan: Yeah. You could live without ever seeing it in your life.
Laura: Should not. But you should.
Ryan: Perfectly fine. Anyway, great. Put it this way, gerard Butler plays Dracula. Anyway, that's the end of this episode, guys. Thank you.
Laura: Okay. All right. Yeah. Bye.