Technically, People
Places Things is not a bad film.
However, much like that god-awful title, seemingly no effort was made to
make it any good either. Independent
cinema, as insignificant as that label seems to be sometimes, has fallen victim
to some pandering and repetitive tropes, and People Places Things feels like a distillation of those tropes into
an insufferable amalgam of uninspired drivel.
The comedy is weak, the drama is weaker, and the plot is so
inconsequential that it won’t be remembered by anyone who takes the time to sit
through the entire film.
Sing along if you know the words: A single dad, Will, played
by a notably quirky actor (in this case Flight of the Conchord's Jemaine Clement) tries to navigate his
career, his divorce, raising his children, and his potential love life. This plays like a softcore version of the
show Louie, but without the avant
garde cynicism that makes that show work so well. The aforementioned career is as a professor
teaching on how to make comic books, which simultaneously acts as an excuse to
aggrandize higher education and include comic style art in the film’s
production. Neither of those are per say
bad things, but here they feel like checkmarks on a laundry list of required
indie swag.
Will’s divorce is supposedly played for laughs as his wife
cheats on him during their twin daughters’ fifth birthday party, but this joke
feels bizarre, nonsensical, and completely out-of-line for the supposed
supermom the ex-wife later purports herself to be. The separated couple shtick is also used for
some trite scheduling conflict shenanigans that have been stale for years, yet
are in no way reimagined to greater effect here. This is only exasperated by how artificially
precious the twin daughters are, with an exploitative cuteness rarely seen this
side of the Olsen twins.
The one bright spot of the film comes in the form of Will’s
romantic interest, a literature professor and mother of one of his students
played by Regina Hall. The nice thing
about Hall’s inclusion is that not once is the potential for an interracial
relationship acknowledged as weird or bizarre, which is shockingly still a
trope elsewhere in modern cinema. But
beyond that, her character is still little more than a means for Will to move
on with his life after his divorce, by no means an independent character with
identifiable traits or personality.
Again, nothing I’ve said about this film is technically bad,
but it feels so similar to parts of a million other movies out there that it
does almost nothing to stand on its own. The
title People Places Things feels like
such a slapdash attempt at indie coolness that it’s hardly surprising that the
screenplay and performances feel much the same.
Don’t waste your time with this one.
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