Movies Reviews

Now & Later – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Feb 11, 2011, 14:55 GMT

Sex, politics and American culture are mixed into a combustible combination in Now & Later. ...more

A cast and crew of newcomers bring a social/political manifesto to the big screen with mixed results.

New talent Shari Solanis teams up with fellow lead James Wortham to provide a potboiler for the Coachilla generation, and, boy, are we glad she did. We are glad she teamed up with Shari Solanis because he did almost no perceptible acting in this new potboiler from indie writer/director Philippe Diaz.

If baseball is the analogy, this film has two out of three strikes against it in the first five minutes. All you have to do is hear the first sentence out of Wortham’s character Bill and you mark up one strike for him as an actor, and one for his character’s part in the screenplay.

The screenplay is not his fault, but falls in the lap of writer-director Diaz, who wrote a script that reads like something from a high school drama class. It is simplistic, preachy and has little style or flow.

In fairness to Diaz, and Wortham, the half of the script allotted to ex-banker Bill is supposed to be as wooden as a golf tee. So perhaps Wortham’s wooden acting can be forgiven. On the other hand, every actor knows you do not get drunk to play a drunk on screen.

Playing a self-absorbed sociopath does not mean having no expression, using a monotone voice, and having no phrasing. Playing a sociopath means projecting sociopathy to the viewing audience. The wooden fertility god in Angela’s apartment was more interesting.

Given the heavy sexual hype of the film is it no wonder the average viewer will be ready for hot sex immediately after the credits. This is free-love baby! Shag me!

Wait a minute, wrong generation. That was the self-absorbed, drug riddled, sexually jaded 1960s generation, dropping out and becoming terminally addled through liberating and consciousness raising use of LSD and hog tranquilizers.

This is the NOW generation and when we become drug addled and repeat Anis Nin’s sex experiments of the 1930s we have to make sure they are accompanied by a strong dose of quasi-radical, anti-capitalist, political rhetoric. After all, if we do not include the politics there is nothing to the film but pornography (by the way, the film would be good pornography if there were not so much politics).

Bill is the washed-up rogue banker who made millions using every sort of scumbag trading trick known to man and was then hung out to dry by his double-crossing bosses who pocketed all his profits when he won and threw him to the dogs when he lost. Moreover, his double-crossing WASP wife divorced him when he could not come up with the country club dues.

Based on his lines in this screenplay if Bill said one word in his own defense he would have been thrown out of a lunatic asylum for making no sense. The man is just plain dumb.

Lesson for Mr. Diaz: Rogue bankers are not dumb. Nor are they bad communicators. They have genius IQs and communicate very well. They are Tom Cruise in “Rainmaker,” not Dustin Hoffman.

In addition, their wives are just as corrupt as they are and both know enough to stash a pile of money in the mattress so after hubby is out of jail they can go back to living like kings and queens. They do not break up after he is busted, they both expect him to be busted and have a good lawyer.

Luckily, Bill’s lines are beside the point. The point is the politics of Angela (played to the hilt by Solanis). Solanis brings a ray of light into this film. Sure, the words Angela says are a hodge-podge of preachy neo-socialist, anti-US pot-dreams, but Solanis says them with such style. Nothing like an east coast upbringing coupled with New York acting school to produce such sweet lines of nothingness.

This brings us back to the sex part of the film. Boy is she sexy. Unfortunately, there is not enough porn and too much politics. Be forewarned, even while appreciating the moxie of this crew you will find it hard to sit through this one. Nevertheless, you will look forward to more by these talented moviemakers.

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Director: Philippe Diaz
Writer: Philippe Diaz
Starring: Luis Fernandez-Gil, Adrian Quinonez and Shari Solanis 
Release Date: February 18, 2011
MPAA: Unrated
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color