ED'S NEXT MOVE
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1996 Christopher Null
This year's low-budget success story and darling of the festival circuit, ED'S NEXT MOVE is one of a handful of recent pictures that is truly deserving of its praise.
The Manhattan-based indie traces a few weeks in the life of urban greenhorn Eddie (Matt Ross), whose titular move is from the wide-open, cheesy state of Wisconsin to the dog-eat-dog world of New York City. Eddie, a genetics researcher and rice breeder, faces the world alone -- a stranger in a strange land. He lives in a cheap motel while he tries to find a non-psychotic roommate, can't get a simple hamburger at a restaurant, and finds his Midwestern sensibilities out of place in the big city.
It's here that Eddie meets Lee (Callie Thorne), a brassy hipster trying to cut it as a musician. Eddie, in fine romantic comedy style, becomes smitten with Lee and tries to win her affections.
The result is a fine comedy from newcomer John Walsh, who directs his own script. In fact, just about everyone associated with the film is a newcomer, which works to the benefit of the picture by keeping everything fresh. Ross and Thorne are excellent actors, and because we've never seen them before, it's easy to suspend disbelief enough to buy them in their parts. (Also good is Kevin Carroll as Eddie's antithesis and roommate Ray.)
With funny and fresh dialogue, a heap of production values considering the low budget, and a wide-appeal story that neither condescends to the audience nor enters the saccharine world of big-budget romantic comedies, ED'S NEXT MOVE is a winner for just about anyone's taste. (This critic laughed his proverbial butt off, that's for sure.) Be sure to watch for "the mice scene" -- the only comparable fall-down laughing sequence equivalent to last year's "banana scene" from THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN.
ED'S NEXT MOVE remains one of the better offerings of the year, by giving us a romantic comedy about people who could feasibly be friends of ours -- or could even be ourselves. My only hope is that Walsh can keep it up with his next picture.
Watch for an interview with writer/director John Walsh, coming soon!
RATING: ****1/2
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
-Christopher Null / null@filmcritic.com / Writer-Producer -Visit the Movie Emporium at http://www.filmcritic.com/ -and Null Set Productions at http://www.filmcritic.com/nullset.htm
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