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Benjamin

Country: united_kingdom

Year: 2020

Running time: 85

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7455076/reference

Michael says: “British romantic comedy BENJAMIN is one of those films that’s amusing up to a point, then it moves into insufferable and nearly unbearable to watch. I know I’m in the minority here, (BENJAMIN has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 89%), and I also know I have a fairly low tolerance for gay romantic comedies (although the problems I had with BENJAMIN are not the usual problems I have with gay rom-coms) but after a promising start and an interesting premise, I had hoped for better. Benjamin (Colin Morgan) is a young filmmaker, whose debut was a surprise indie hit. Now he is beside himself with anxiety upon the release of his second feature , which is all about the main characters (played by Benjamin) exploring his perceived inability to love. It’s a concern shared by Benjamin the filmmaker as well (and something makes me ponder whether BENJAMIN’s director, Simon Amstell, might not have been going through the same things as he made his second feature film). It’s all so meta, really. Benjamin is cute, in a geeky boys way, painfully awkward, but disarmingly witty, and basically a bundle of neuroses with non-stop verbal diarrhea. Fortunately, he surrounds himself with equally quirky companions: Aspiring comedian Stephen (Joel Fry) who is Benjamin’s best friend, his doting, yet fickle producer, Tessa (Anna Chancellor) and his frankly, batshit crazy manager Billie (Jessica Raine). On the eve before his film’s premiere, Billie convinces Benjamin  to attend a party to celebrate a chair (don’t ask, that’s the kind of sarcastically trendy humor the film tosses about) where he sees, becomes instantly obsessed with, and meets (in that order) the lead singer of a mopey band, Noah (Phénix Brossard) who also just happens to be French, to Benjamin’s Irish. I think that’s supposed to make them cuter). Shockingly, Noah is similarly intrigued by Benjamin, and the two spend the night together. The rest of the film involves Benjamin screwing things up over and over because of his inability to express love, until the invariably expected realization that he CAN actually feel and express love and everything is good..

“Where to begin? The witty, often inane prattle that the characters communicate with is amusing, even funny, for a time. Then it gets tiresome and pretentious. The screenplay, also by Amstell, is fairly formulaic, and too self-conscious to hold up for more than half an hour or so. The acting is fine, with one very important exception. Mr. Brossard’s Noah, the person in whole Benjamin becomes instantly smitten, and who is clearly meant to embody goodness, talent, intrigue, and desire, delivers the blandest, and most boring performance I have seen in a while. (And for someone who was supposed to be a compelling musician, couldn’t they have gotten someone who could sing?) No offense, Mr. Brossard, I blame the director as well. And when did young men get so young? I felt like,e I was watching 12-year-olds play grown-up. The only moment of honesty and interest, comes three-quarters of the way through the film, when Benjamin, on a date with Noah to meet the parents, has a nasty and barbed encounter with his ex, about whom he wrote his film. In his one scene, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett at least injects some life and real emotion into this flat film the is just trying too hard to be geekily hip and fun.n Like the film within the film, BENJAMIN felt like a pretty self-indulgent exercise where the director was going through some issues and through putting them on film would help. I hope it helped him, because it didn’t do much for me. Still, despite my pretty negative review, there were a few amusing moments, and I will also allow that I may just be too old and curmudgeonly to appreciate it, so I can give it 2 cats.”
Benjamin

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