I think maybe Soderbergh is onto something here, a three-part comedy satire about, well, I don’t know, adultery? The American Dream? The suburban middle-classes? It seems to touch on a lot of things with a deadpan that wouldn’t be out of place in Monty Python, or low-budget Wes Anderson at times, but mostly this is just demented throwing-ideas-at-the-screen-and-seeing-what-sticks kinda stuff. By the time it’s finished, the manic energy has calmed a bit into something a little more contemplative, about the leading lady (Betsy Brantley, Soderbergh’s ex-wife) and a feeling of ennui, perhaps, comes through. But mostly, it’s just quite exhausting.
FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director/Writer/Cinematographer Steven Soderbergh; Starring Steven Soderbergh, Betsy Brantley; Length 96 minutes.
Seen at home (VHS), Wellington, June 2000 (and on DVD at a friend’s house, London, Sunday 18 February 2018).
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