What's up with the reviews of My Last Five Girlfriends?

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XxApplePiiexX

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I just can't explain it. Jonathan Ross said it was one of the worst films he'd ever seen. rabroad said it invented a new genre - the BombCom. I saw it this afternoon, and IMHO they both need a major slapping.

It's a terrific little film - clever, laugh-out-loud funny in places, and very well written and directed. In full disclosure, I know a few of the people involved (goodness knows why I'd have seen it otherwise, given the reviews), but the mrs didn't and she enjoyed it as much as I did. In fact, anyone I know who has actually seen it has enjoyed it. There's touches of Cameron Crowe in there, a director I particularly love. One could quibble about a couple of performances (most are fine), but I've seen far, far FAR worse than even the few weak moments in this.

It's annoys me. It's a small British film made against all the odRAB, but it has intelligence, ambition and craft and it appears to have been given a merciless kicking for no reason I can fathom. Funnily enough, I understand its reception in America has been much more positive. It just smells of small-minded Britishness... not the film, but the reviews. It kinda reminRAB of me of So I Married An Axe Murderer - a quirky film almost universally panned on release, but I loved it when I saw it. Soon it had acquired a cult following and those early reviews are now forgotten.

My Last Five GirlfrienRAB is so, so far from deserving an accolade of "worst film ever" that it's totally inexplicable. I've sat through some dogs in my time - no doubt we all have. This isn't even close. If anyone's actually seen it, do post here - perhaps I'm wrong and it really is a terrible movie. But from where I sat, I wondered if the reviewers had all seen a totally different film from me. It really does deserve to do well.
 
Couldn't agree more, it is a decent film that has suffered some bad reviews. Perhaps the reviewers only want formulaic, join the dots filmmaking.

Following on from your remarks about its reception in the US; I was in New York last year during the Tribeca Film Festival and saw it there. The audience at the screening I attended seemed to really appreciate it (as did I) and I believe extra screenings were put on because of the demand for tickets.

It's obviously a low budget film and it shows in some places but it's fresh and different enough from the run of the mill rom-com to warrant a viewing.
 
What glowing reviews?! Seriously?! Where?!!!

Good to hear you enjoyed it too Bibendum. For some reason people seemed to have taken against the directorial quirks, but no idea why - they were always entertaining and served story, I thought - really nicely executed. The Michel Gondry comparison comes up a lot. I adored Eternal Sunshine, but thought The Science of Sleep was atrotious - everything that people have complained about My Last Five GirlfrienRAB was actually true of The Science of Sleep. Yet the critics were kind to that film... why? Because it's French? Because it's Gondry?

I do think we're great at kicking our own in this country. My Last Five GirlfrienRAB is unashamedly middle class and set in London, and it was therefore always doomed in the eyes of the UK intelligensia... who are exactly this themselves, of course.
 
In a week where big-name Hollywood films are getting one-star reviews? The reviews I've seen of My Last Five GirlfrienRAB have been warm but honest, using phrases like "bonus marks for being so clever on a shoestring budget" or "some ideas are inventive while others feel lazy and cliched."
 
It doesn't work on all levels but it is different and at times very funny. The thought of watching yet another conventional Hollywood rom-com like The Bounty Hunter does nothing for me and I was dubious about seeing My Last 5 GirlfrienRAB but I'm glad I did. In New York, the critics viewed this as a different attempt at a well-worn genre and embraced it.

Reading some of the reviews here in the UK for this film makes me think the critics in this country have become so used to seeing star vehicles, they dismiss out of hand any attempt to try something different.
 
It's becoming an obsession of mine to work out what has happened here! I do think that cinematic middle class Londoners are very frowned upon by our critics. I can't remember which of the many bad reviews it was that moaned about "why should we care about some nobody's disastrous love life". 100-1 that criticism would not have been made if the film had been set in Austin or Barcelona. If it's too close to home - especially if the protagonists are comfortably well off - people will deride it.

It's not hip in the way that Kick Ass is hip - that's allowed cos its violent and edgy, two things we seem to love (not dissing Kick Ass btw, especially since I also know a very talented person who worked on that!) Richard Curtis has been derided plenty, but he gets away with it more because he epitomises Hollywood At Home - we get real stars, so although clearly critics resent him, they must consider that he begrudgingly delivers on a glossy stage.

ML5G has no stars. It has imagination in spades which elevates what is obviously intended to be the mundane (as seems to have been appreciated in the US, I'm glad to hear!). As Brendan points out in the opening, in the movies people walk of into the beach in the sunset while the music plays... whereas in real life they get to the beach, have a row and go back to the car (wonderful line). Indeed, there's a lovely gag early on in his imaginary theme park where a light plane flies overhead trailing the banner "the world's first theme park devoted to a complete nobody".

I think writer / director Julian Kemp has inadvertently stumbled upon a particularly dislikeable part of the British Establishment psyche. If he'd set his film in Vienna or even Tower Hamlets, he'd probably be lauded as a new visionary. As it is, the poor sod chose Islington - where the story belonged - and was doomed. Another point of irritation - people seemed fixated on it being low budget (Variety UK even complained it was shot on DV - it wasn't - and looked awful). This, absolutely, is rubbish. It was very nicely shot and lit, the effects were slick and well executed, music and sound were great - there was barely an element that looked cheap (even though of course in reality it was made on a budget). Again, I think because it's At Home, and Kemp wasn't intending it to look like Baywatch and keep a more appropriately indie sensibility, it's been knocked.

I remember years ago watching the much-lauded UK flick Beautiful Thing. It irritated me because it was pointlessly set on a housing estate. The characters and situations belonged in suburbia, but I suspect the makers knew this wasn't going to sell well, so they got some very cheap cred points by setting it in Thamesmead instead.

I'm not claiming ML5G is the greatest film ever made - I'd take a few issues with it, in fact. But I maintain that, fundamentally, it works really well. I do hope it gets a proper release elsewhere in the world where I'm pretty confident it will enjoy a much better ride than on home turf. It deserves some lovin'!
 
I wouldn't take much notice of what Mr Ross says, I seem to disagree with most of what he says.Might give this film a whirl, must be better than a lot of the garbage I've watched lately.
 
Must admit I stopped watching Film XXXX some years ago - it used to be essential in Barry Norman's day of course. I don't even bother on iPlayer now when I'm really bored! I'd love to see Mark Kermode take over, preferably in a new format with someone to bounce off... Simon Mayo would be the dream ticket, our very own (and better) Siskel and Ebert...
 
Some fine points, inkblot. I remember Science of Sleep had genuinely mixed reviews - overall my recollection is that it was flawed but the good outweighed the bad. Peter BraRABhaw was in a minority for 500 days though - this was broadly very well reviewed. Agree totally about your Notting Hill observations.

I've read about a dozen UK reviews of ML5G. I haven't seen The Mirror (whose glowing quote is on the poster), so fair enough on that one. ViewLondon gave it 3/5. Every other review was 2 or 1, with the two I mentioned in the OP declaring it among the worst films ever made (which I guess sparked the thread, as the observations seemed so absurd). So I think it's fair to summarise the reviews as not-glowing.

I want to pick you up on your last sentence though. Why is Islington intrinsically dull, whereas, say, Barcelona (or Thamsemead for Gawd's sake) isn't? Put it another way - are there areas of America or Europe that preclude you watching a film? If so, what are they and why?

Also, I don't care where an author lives or what else he or she has done for a living - I only care if they can write. I haven't read the source novel of ML5G either, so I've no idea if it's any good, mind!

So, fundamentally, what's the difference in the pitch of Science of Sleep, 500 Days of Summer or ML5G? I can't be the only person who actually LIKES seeing London on film, and seeing how a director portrays it. I don't go out of my way to see London-based films, but its never a barrier. I think there's an assumption on the part of reviewers that no-one wants to see London in a cinema when you can get on a train and see it for free....
 
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