Overall,
the acting was fairly decent and matches well to the real
life conversational pace of the film. I did, however have
some issues with the Cody and Shannon characters. To be
perfectly honest it felt like two perfectly nice and friendly
people playing two rather jerky roles. I especially kept
expecting Ferguson (Cody) to pull off his Perfectionist-Narcissistic-Jerk
Mask mid film and turn out to be a deep and caring person.
This may very well have been meant to add to the complexity
of the characters, but I can't help but think that Ferguson
and Katie would have been better cast by switching roles
with Weston Davis and Christina Cain (Scott and Jenny).
One
of the strongest messages I took from this film is that
real trust is impossible without honesty, and sadly, real
honesty is difficult to achieve without trust. This paradox
plagues the characters throughout the entirety of this
dialogue-driven film about relationships, and the audience
cannot help but find themselves rooting for those characters.
Private
Lives looks at both
the realities of heterosexual...
..and
homosexual relationships
in modern America.
Visual
Look
The shooting of this film is equally as intimate as the
scripting. It felt less like viewing a movie on a screen
and more like actually standing in close proximity to the
characters, and breathing the same air.
Private
Lives appears to have been shot mostly at night on location
at 3 apartment/townhouses and when considering the limited
space for rigging, gear and the other closed-space issues
we have all come to love, the footage came out fairly well.
This is a classic example of using what you have and making
it work for you. The end result in Private Lives was a very
intimate, first-person feel.
As a
denizen of a fairly similar townhouse, I can vouch for the
authenticity of the lighting and feel; It made me look around
my own living room with a certain sense of Déjà
vu.
White
balance and color consistency was good, as was most of the
lighting with the exception of 1 or 2 outdoor night shots
(but what can you do when you don't have 40k to spend on
a lighting rig?) The only major recurring lighting issues
were pertaining to several shots that included a light source
as part of the scenery (i.e. a table lamp). This caused
those scenes to look a bit over-exposed. I would suggest
using a lower wattage bulb in the future; this will cause
said lamps to only appear to be a lightsource without actually
adding unwanted brightness to the shot.
Use
of Audio
The sound track very appropriate and was a wonderful accompaniment
to the overall style, though the levels could stand to be
a little lower in some of the some of the close-up shots.
Given that a lone shotgun MIC was used throughout the production,
there are only a few instances where the dialogue audio
is sketchy.
Use
of Budget
Ferguson and crew took what would have been a financial
limitation for many, and turned it around to their advantage.
Because the film takes place in 3 apartments, issues such
as weather, consistent outdoor lighting, and environmental
noise were a moot point. This allowed them to use their
2-K budget more for the meat-and-potatoes of the film without
all of the costly work of tweaking environmental inconsistencies
Lasting
Appeal
This is not a movie for everyone. The viewing audience will
need to be open minded and aware that this is a slice of
life film. People looking to merely be entertained will
probably just not get it. If, however, you enjoy sitting
down and thinking about films and the issues raised by pieces
that try to mirror the real world, then Private Lives will
give you plenty of material to discuss.
Overall
Comment
One of the things to remember in watching an inter-personal
dialogue-driven movie is this: the story is being sold to
the audience by way of the characters themselves. The personality
of each character is what maintains the audience's interest.
When a work relies so closely on establishing empathy between
the protagonist and the audience, it is vital that said
empathy is maintained and nurtured through the duration
of the film. For the most part, it was very easy to empathize
with the characters regardless of personal likes or dislikes.
I would have loved to see a little more clarification at
the end of the Cody vs. Allan conflict, but maybe we'll
find that out in the sequel.
