The actors, identified only as “Man” and “Woman”, are respectively the painfully underappreciated Aaron Eckhardt and the luminously lovely Helena Bonham Carter.
This small, arty film opens with a split screen that teases you and somehow as it continues to carry the film along with the expert actors, centers upon a seemingly simple plot:
A man and a woman flirt at a wedding reception and weave in and out of time, in and out of the split screen which seems, at first, to establish the action in the present, with the actors' behavior with each other softening, becoming more intimate as they erase the split screen barrier. The device then shows the couple, or what you can imagine was the couple years earlier; often the second screen mimics the action of what is happening in the present. What I find most remarkable about this film, which asks many, many intriguing questions – in addition to the enjoyable ones – such as “will they-won't they end up in bed?” there are the tough queries about the nature of human behavior, what makes us choose one future rather than another, what do any of our choices mean, can we repair past mistakes, how do we survive the passage of time?
Its two-person cast (there are fringe actors such as the bride and groom and the videographer but they are tangential to the plot) and one night spent together remind me of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” but this one
Is less narrative than puzzle. Until we know for certain, before the film ends, we wonder
If they have known each other at another point in their lives, and this is brought home beautifully with this split screen shooting of the film that acts like a parallel at times, offers a mirror to the actors, or simply the temptation for the viewer to wonder whether the woman is being coy, has grown somewhat bitter and sad while the man remains fixed in his position that they had known each other well, in “another” life lived within this one.
I found myself riveted to the small screen, waiting for revelations and answers to the provocative questions about love and its possibilities; some are delivered and others, are left for the viewer to ponder. Gabrielle Zevin wrote the complicated script and packed it full of dialogue that is uniquely close to the way women and men speak to each other. Hans Canosa directed, managing the split screen technique masterfully. Their IMDB profiles are short and read, with one small exception, like carbon copies of each other's resumes. I wonder if they are romantically linked. Or simply work magic when they work together.
This is a movie that seems as if it would drag, two people in conversation, for the film's eighty-four minutes. But it is engrossing and deeply thoughtprovoking. Since the film's title is “Conversations with Other Women” but its plot involves a conversation with only one woman, I'm wondering whether that intentional title asks yet another question: do we sometimes change so much in a decade or two that we become other men and women? Or do we not change at all, the journey pulls us along to some unknowable place, some phantom future that ultimately becomes the present?
Check it out if you are the type to enjoy a real “talkie” movie that moves at a surprisingly quick pace; it won't disappoint.
And a day later, I am wondering still. Rent this small gem and see if it hits you the way it grabbed my attention.
