DVD Review: The Good Night

DVD Reviews

By Frankie Dees Mar 26, 2008, 15:14 GMT

A strange and strangely compelling dramedy, writer-director Jake Paltrow’s first feature casts an eclectic group of actors that includes Simon Pegg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz, Danny DeVito and headlined by Martin Freeman and throws them into a fantastical yet slow-paced tale of a lost soul who gets to confront his dreams literally.

Jake Paltrow doesn’t seem interested in really examining the dreamscape or trying to lose the viewer a la Michel Gondry’s ‘The Science of Sleep’ and merely uses the concept as a façade to offer up some intriguing characters and a fascinatingly distinctive narrative. Not delving too deep into the logic of the protagonists dreams allows the brisk film (at only 90 minutes) to be more of a character piece rather than a convoluted, impenetrable puzzle of a film and it’s a refreshing change actually. The film starts off on a stutter with an odd mock-doc interview intro that the film thankfully abandons early on. I was hoping these interviews wouldn’t keep popping up throughout the film and luckily the filmmakers realized they weren’t dealing with ‘When Harry Met Sally’ other than a regression late in the film. The interviewees introduce our leading man musician Gary Sheller in tones of muted lament. We flashback two years earlier where we find Gary Sheller (Martin Freeman) in New York eking out a living purposefully doing mediocre work as a TV commercial composer. Once a part of a mildly successful band that has since broke up, Gary’s creative well has run dry due to an early mid-life crisis of sorts. His live-in girlfriend Dora (a glammed-down Gwyneth Paltrow) doesn’t help matters as she has her own depressive matters to sort out and is vocal about Gary not living up to his potential. Furthering his misery is his former band mate and best friend Paul’s (an always fun Simon Pegg) success in advertising. This crisis seems to lead to an escape through dreams where he begins to have recurring dreams about a gorgeous, unknown Latina (Penelope Cruz) in impeccable dress and upper-class scenarios. With nothing else in life to get his attention, he becomes consumed by these dreams and pursues the idea of lucid dreaming even going so far as to seek advice from a dream expert (Danny DeVito). His indifference to his waking life and his noticeably vested interest in his sleep drives Dora even further away and she eventually takes up a temp work assignment in Venice leaving Gary alone with his dreams. He soon sees an ad while he is awake with his dream mystery woman and realizes he subconsciously lifted her visage. With Paul being kept up to date, he’s actually able to book the real life fantasy woman, a model named Melodia, in a commercial and is able to introduce her to Gary. An effective sequence has Gary meet his dream lover face to face with surprising results and this apex in the film leads to successive plot turns that are nigh unpredictable. As Gary’s grim realization of the limitations of dreams come to the forefront, the film takes a decidedly more dour spin. The climax will no doubt prove frustrating for a lot of viewers but I found it an appropriate cap to the story. Still unknown to most of America, Martin Freeman of BBC’s ‘The Office’ and ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, proves to be rather adept at the dramatic lead. Nice chemistry with Simon Pegg who pretty much sticks to his comedy here makes for some good rapport and DeVito, Paltrow and Cruz all offer solid support. The debut direction from Jake Paltrow is refreshingly smooth and not reliant on a lot of film-school gimmickry although the intentional contrast between the awake and dream world results in one gimmick that actually works. The dreams are crystal clear and the awake world is plagued by grain – slightly annoying at first but better implemented as the film plays out. Special Features include a handful of trailers and a full-length audio commentary from Jake Paltrow. A mildly enjoyable listen, Paltrow has some intriguing things to say but the track overall is rather dry. Despite a peculiar bookend of mock-doc interview footage that’s completely superfluous, I found this pic to be a fascinating and enjoyable watch with nice, subtle direction from Jake Paltrow and a unique narrative backed up by equally unique but spot on casting. The Good Night is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a May 26th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.