>>REVIEW
CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN
STARRING Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter
DIRECTED BY Hans Canosa
Opens Friday, September 8
Globe Cinema
It’s rare that you see gimmick movies outside the sci-fi genre. Smell-o-rama. 3-D. These are usually the geeky grandstanding trappings of bad movies with cheesy effects. So, it’s a surprise that Conversations with Other Women works so well. Usually the only gimmick allocated to relationship flicks is the inclusion of Meg Ryan. On the surface Conversations with Other Women is a standard, talky drama, albeit one with a knockout cast. The difference is that it plays out in split screen.
Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart are a couple whose seemingly chance meeting at a wedding unfolds into something much more complex. As the sun rises the next morning, both are left with an unshakable feeling of regret, both for different reasons. Conversations with Other Women concerns itself with the intervening hours with both actors and director Hans Canosa giving full credit to Gabrielle Zevin’s lovely script.
With only two principal characters and most of the action taking place in a hotel bedroom, you would be hard pressed to find a script that feels more like a stage play. Canosa’s decision to shoot the film in split-screen is key to making this stand out from your usual relationship two-hander. With Canosa’s choice of coverage, Eckhart and Carter are almost always onscreen, reacting to each other’s dialogue, bringing an immediacy and tension to the scenes often lacking in films like this. When they aren’t face to face onscreen, Canosa uses the frame to play with time and space. Sometimes the dialogue plays out alongside a flashback, supporting or discounting the characters’ words. In other moments, two similar close-ups of the same actor dominate the frame. Canosa uses two separate takes at the same time, further punctuating that this is cinema, not stage.
The technique not only benefits the characters, but the actors as well. Both Carter and Eckhart are impressive enough that had this been a standard film, their performances would have carried it through. With split-screen, however, every nuance and every gesture is captured. It’s up to the audience to pay attention.
It doesn’t always work. As with most experiments there is an adjustment period. Canosa’s split-screen leaves audiences with a few moments of awkward composition and sometimes his choice to leave the main couple upsets the flow of the film. Still, considering that he’s a first-time director, for such an intimate and quiet film, the bold shooting style proves to be the best way to serve the script. |
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