This heartfelt but muddled farce from Bosnian filmmaker Pjer Zalica falls well short of its models, Emir Kusturica’s Underground and Milos Forman’s The Fireman’s Ball. When the corrupt mayor of a Bosnian village learns that President Clinton is scheduled to visit, he and the townspeople scramble to erect a facade of communal respectability, even disguising […]
Author Archives: Anthony Kaufman
Posted inFilm
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
Danish director Lone Scherfig’s first English-language feature falls short of the affecting, mordant wit of her celebrated Dogma 95 effort Italian for Beginners. Wilbur, a morose Glaswegian, and Harbour, his older, more stable brother, both fall in love with Alice, a shy single mother; the love triangle collapses into tired melodrama when Harbour is diagnosed […]
Posted inFilm
Pieces of April
The directorial debut of scenarist Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, About a Boy) is a slight comic drama about familial reconciliation. Katie Holmes stars as April Burns, a young East Village misfit trying to win back her estranged family by cooking them Thanksgiving dinner. Finding her oven is broken, she seeks help from her […]