Warning: Spoiler Ahead
When the men have had as much as they can take and their wives are in wife #1’s house, they all band together in husband #1’s garage to figure out how to remove the HusBANDs they’re wearing. After thinking of multiple tools (including axes and saws), they arrive at some industrial strength hedge clippers, which do the job. This is the first problem I have: The HusBAND pamphlet clearly states that the BAND can’t be removed except by one of their technicians. As such, why wouldn’t the BAND shock the husband if any instrument was placed in the band? If no mention had been made about the BAND being irremovable, I wouldn’t even have asked that question. However, because it was, it really needed to be addressed in a logical manner.
The second issue occurs after they’ve removed their BANDs and charge into husband #1’s house to confront their wives. Their body language shows that they are clearly out to tear a piece out of their wives, at least verbally. However, after standing behind where their wives are still chatting with one another for a minute, they abruptly break off and go to a side table that has been prepared with food. Here, at each place setting, they find pictures of their individual weddings to their wives and are so reminded of how special their wives are to them that they decide they can’t be mad any longer. While the sentiment here is sweet, the sudden change from angry, self-righteous men to tender gentlemen is too extreme. The filmmaker might have been trying to state that the men were normally cowards that couldn’t confront their wives, no matter how angry they were. Or, he might have been stating that they had been so trained by the B.F. Skinner-style HusBANDs that they no longer could stomach the thought of lashing out at their wives. Or he might have been saying that men think more with their stomach’s than their brains and the lure of the food caused them to stem their anger, at which time they were reminded of their love for their wives. Whatever the case, this needed to be clearly demonstrated so that the audience understands why they suddenly break off their attack.
After these two missteps, the final ending is quite satisfying. As it works well, I won’t ruin it by giving any spoilers.
When the Wife orders the
new HusBAND...
...her Husband's life is
changed drastically.
Visual Look
The camera shots acquired by Beau Hester with the JVC HD100 HDV camera were well thought out, with a strong leaning toward CUs and XCUs, without neglecting concrete establishing shots. The actors and set were well-lit, which is especially important with light-hogging HDV cameras, and colorist Richard Flores managed to get a very warm, filmic feel for the piece. Jonathan Sargent did a nice job on an animated intro that was very reminiscent of ‘60s comedies like “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!” Finally, the pamphlet they created for the HusBAND was very well illustrated and nicely printed so that it really looked like a pamphlet that comes with these sorts of electronic doohickeys (or, in a Tyler Durdin sort of way, the replacement cards for the airlines in Fight Club).
The only thing that needs to be mentioned in the visual look section is that there is a scene where the husband is reading a professional swimsuit magazine that clearly shows the models’ faces. While the magazine logo isn’t noticeable, it is almost never legal to show a models’ pictures without obtaining prior permission to do so. As such, if that has not been obtained, the scene needs to be altered so the faces can’t be seen, as many festivals will not accept films that do not have all their clearances in order. (And unfortunately, neither the length of a film nor its budget exclude it from being prosecuted. I recently received a cease and desist order for a film that we critiqued a year and a half ago because the filmmaker had not received copyright permissions for his main subject matter. He was being forced to essentially shut down any advertising of the film and I was told MFM had to remove the critique from our server.)
