ED'S NEXT MOVE A film review by Scott Renshaw Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
(Orion Classics) Starring: Matt Ross, Callie Thorne, Kevin Carroll. Screenplay: John Walsh. Producer: Salley Roy. Director: John Walsh. Running Time: 88 minutes. MPAA Rating: R (profanity). Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I know that Americans love an underdog, but really...enough already. It has gotten to the point in the marketing of independent films where selling the meagerness of the budget and the film-makers' sacrifices in getting their pet projects made has turned into a kind of bizarre one-downmanship. If your guy made his movie for $20,000, our guy made his for $15,000; if your guy financed his movie with Visa cards, our guy sold one of his kidneys to pay the caterer. It is tempting to sell the compelling story behind the movie (particularly if you arc concerned about whether there is a compelling story _in_ the movie), but I believe that there are negative consequences to turning every independent film-maker to come down the pike into Horatio Alger. These young directors are experiencing success, but it is success with an asterisk, because the audiences have been asked to appreciate their work not on its merit but because they worked so darned hard.
Take ED'S NEXT MOVE, for example. Written and directed by newcomer John Walsh, it is the story of Eddie Brodsky (Matt Ross), a Wisconsin chemist who decides to take a big step when his long-time girlfriend (Cathy Curtin) dumps him: moving to New York to take a job in a genetic engineering lab. The big city is daunting, but Eddie begins to adjust once he finds an apartment -- and a roommate named Ray (Kevin Carroll) -- and begins to get into a routine. The one thing missing is a romantic relationship, a special someone like Lee (Callie Thorne), a musician Eddie keeps running into. When he finally gets up the nerve to ask her out. He finds the road to true love is complicated by boyfriends, mousetraps, the common cold and the double-edged sword of being a Nice Guy.
ED'S NEXT MOVE is a perfectly pleasant little romantic comedy, an unassuming and unpretentious character study which makes more than a casual not to ANNIE HALL. Walsh has fashioned an outsider's-eye-view valentine to New York's idiosyncracies the way Allen fashions insider's-eye-view valentines, and both films find neurosis getting in the way of a potential romance; Walsh even cribs from ANNIE HALL's more surreal moments, like a scene with translators interpreting the conversation in which Anne breaks up with Eddie which recalls ANNIE HALL'S sub-titles scene. Still, there is an appealing performance by Matt Ross as a smart, likeable protagonist who, blessedly, is not a self-absorbed aspiring artist of some sort like so many indie film protagonists, and solid supporting work from Kevin Carroll as a ladies' man who is not a stereotypical jerk. Although Walsh provides few laugh-out-loud moments, he also doesn't seem wrapped up in showing off his own cleverness, and the result is a comedy which makes you feel comfortable.
And that is about all it does. There is a place for entertainments like ED'S NEXT MOVE, and you could spend your seven dollars at the movies in far worse ways, but it would not surprise me to see a rush to anoint Walsh as the next Edward (THE BROTHERS McMULLEN) Burns or Kevin (CLERKS) Smith. Of course, we saw how short the honeymoon was for those two after SHE'S THE ONE and MALLRATS, respectively. There is a disturbing tendency among critics (and yes, I include myself among them) to treat an independent film like a high school play, where it is considered a great show if everyone remembers their lines and no one trips over the set. The thing is that those high school actors and directors turn into college actors and directors, and mere competence suddenly isn't quite as cute.
Getting a film made -- independent or otherwise -- is a brutal business, but a film is no more or less worthy of praise because it was a labor of love. ED'S NEXT MOVE has several things going for it, notably young characters who have some ambition and common sense, but Walsh shows no particular facility with a camera, and his story has virtually nothing going on beneath its agreeable surface. Basically, it is an amusing bit of fluff which is quite similar to other bits of fluff you have seen before, one which promises and delivers little more than a few inoffensive smiles. It is the independent film world's fickle romance with starving artists which starts making promises which John Walsh and other young directors -- armed a couple of years later with more money but the same amount of talent -- might find themselves unable to keep.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 opening moves: 6.
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