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You can't blame writer/director/producer/star Edward Burns for not looking back at his last feature film, the commercial and critical flop No Looking Back. After becoming the darling of American independent cinema with 1995's The Brothers McMullen and following it up with the underappreciated She's the One the following year, Burns grounded out in 1998 with Back, a gloomy, critically maligned film about a love triangle that didn't even begin to recoup its $5 million budget at the box office (it grossed under $200k). Since then, the quadruple threat has landed significant acting roles in two major motion pictures - Saving Private Ryan and 15 Minutes - but with Sidewalks of New York, Burns should feel like he's kickin' it all the way back to the mid '90s.
Sidewalks is set in - big surprise - New York City and focuses on the lives of six characters who stagger through their lives searching for love (mostly in all the wrong places, too). The film begins with faux man-on-the-street interviews with each of the six describing their first sexual experiences before launching into the story proper. Burns does two things that make the film interesting: He uses a handheld camera to shoot most of Sidewalks, and he has each character hail from a different borough of the city (only one is an outsider). Hey - let's meet them right now, shall we?
- Tommy (Burns) is a reporter for an Entertainment Tonight-type show (a bit of an inside joke, as Burns worked for ET until he slipped Robert Redford a tape of McMullen) and has just been kicked out of his Queens apartment by his girlfriend. Tommy temporarily stays with his boss (Dennis Farina, Snatch), who is quick to provide over-the-top advice about how to score with chicks. Then, one day, Tommy meets...
- Maria (Rosario Dawson, Josie and the Pussycats), a native of Staten Island who teaches the 6th grade in a ritzy area of Manhattan where her salary is dwarfed by the allowances of her students. Maria is recently divorced and, though she's attracted to Tommy, is leery of getting involved because she just can't seem to get rid of...
- Benjamin (David Krumholtz, The Mexican) a struggling musician from Brooklyn who pays the bills by working as a doorman. He's still in love with the beautiful Maria and doesn't see anything wrong with dropping by her apartment in the middle of the night. Benjamin thinks he still has a shot with his ex, but, in the meantime, becomes infatuated with...
- Ashley (Brittany Murphy, Girl Interrupted), a guitar-playing NYU student from Iowa (and the only character who hasn't lived in the Big Apple their entire life). She's having an affair with an older, married man who swears he's going to leave his wife to be with her. Should she try to find somebody her own age to frolic with, or simply be content with...
- Griffin (Stanley Tucci, Joe Gould's Secret), a once-divorced Bronx dentist who has remarried a sweet, young honey yet insists on stepping out with Ashley on a regular basis despite his fear of the stigma that twice-divorced men can carry. Griffin is the only unlikable character in the film, which makes you wonder how he landed...
- Annie (Heather Graham, Say It Isn't So), a WASP-y real estate agent from the Upper East Side of Manhattan who foolishly believes she has the perfect marriage. The story comes full circle when Annie shows an apartment to the recently homeless Tommy.
If any of this sounds familiar, it must be because you've seen Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, which had a similar (yet much more downbeat) story about doomed relationships, faux interviews with the main characters, shaky, handheld camera work, and a comparable setting. I'm usually against the idea of lifting ideas from other films, but if you're going to do it, why not swipe 'em from something as wonderful as Wives? Copying Rocky to make Driven...now that I've got a problem with.
Sidewalks is much dirtier than Wives, with gags about dick size and various private-part odors. It also helps to perpetuate several myths that outsiders to New York City have come to accept as reality - Jews are really cheap and black people don't exist. But Burns fleshes out his characters with enough quirky sexual hang-ups and various fears (like loneliness and disease) to keep things more than interesting. Nothing really exciting or surprising happens, but it doesn't need to. And that's the sign of a good film.
1:43 - R for sexual content and language
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