20 Dates

Myles Berkowitz is newly divorced after his 10-month marriage ended badly. He also is keen to make his debut film that will launch his movie career. He decides to combine the two biggest failures of his life - his film `career' and his love life to make a film about the real search for love in LA. He sets out to film 20 dates to capture the moment where two people fall in love. However he is in for a rocky road - not only does he have trouble with his dates but the guy funding his film wants it to be something other than what Myles envisages it to be.

This film was made on the cheap and is a mix of documentary and mockumentary; there is no way that all the stuff in this film is real - certainly I never accepted that Elie the producer was the character that the film painted him to be. However, the majority of it seems to be relatively real and the majority of it is funny - which is the important thing here. Forget Myles arty pretensions about filming true love as it happens, the point here is wit and fun. The film is a very particular type of wit and if you're not into it then it is likely that you will hate the film; for me I really enjoyed the light humour of the whole piece and found it amusing even if I wouldn't call it hilarious.

I really liked the invention of some parts of it: the comparisons of the budget in military terms (his film would be the equivalent of one French soldier surrendering to whoever it happens to be at war with), the stuff around Elie, the `meetings' with his agent etc. In fact most of the funny stuff is staged - and it is for the best. If I was being cynical I would question whether or not 95% of the film was scripted and acted as natural. But it didn't bother me because I found it funny.

Myles himself is a strange guy; he is quite abrasive and pretty unpleasant at times and is a bit of a jerk. He definitely doesn't deserve Elisabeth but it is easy to be amused by his cruel humour at times. He holds the attention pretty well when he is on dates, but as an actor I didn't think much of him: at one point we learn he refused an offer for a script on the basis that he would only sell it if he could star - he really needs to focus on writing as neither directing or acting appears to be his thing on the basis of this. The support crew are hilarious. Myles sound guy and cameraman are funny when they have the chance, while both Richard the agent and Elie are hilarious and don't mind sending themselves up!

Overall, treat this film as a comedy rather than a documentary - large chunks of it are staged, but it actually helps the film. It is very rough but it is different and quite enjoyable; it is funny in witty ways and it is funny in inventive ways and both styles work really well. It is not a perfect film (Myles' comes across like a daytime tv presenter at times) but it is fun; and that's all I was really looking for.

The idea of this documentary is not so bad: A young single man meets 20 girls to find out if one of them could be the real love. The realisation is not so good. The director is not a very talented one, the whole movie has more of an amateur home video. There are only two reasons to watch it: At the end of the movie actress Julie McCullough from "Growing Pains" appears as one of the dates and she bewitches with her natural charme and Tia Carrere from "Relic Hunter" is the last date. I have seen better amateur videos.

The summary is a bit redundant: Mockumentaries, as a genre, are fairly quirky.

In this case, recently divorced Myles, also a wannabe filmmaker, decides to make a documentary about trying to find true love in L.A. He commits to going on 20 dates and recording the results. Unfortunately, halfway through, he falls in love with one of his dates and now has to figure out how to complete the project without alienating his new love.

What makes this different from standard mockumentaries -- and what some of the other IMDB reviewers seem to be missing -- is that, while it's clear that the final film isn't a true account of the events (some of the dates are obviously faked, and Elie the villainous producer can't really be THAT evil), it isn't so clear whether Myles Berkowitz (credited as writer and director, as well as star) started out with a serious intent to make a documentary, or whether it was meant to be fiction from the outset.

Most of the evidence points to Berkowitz' initial sincerity. This *is* his only film (except for a bit part in "No Small Affair," 16 years before this movie), and Elie *is* listed as Executive Producer. The official budget *is* the stated $60K. Most of the early dates seem real -- it's only the later ones that start to feel scripted, especially the feminist ballerina.

One thing that gives this movie its charm, then, is that while Myles (the character) fumes about the way in which his original vision for the movie is eroding away from pressure from Elie, Berkowitz (the filmmaker) seems to be going through the same genuine quandary for a different reason -- it didn't take his full 20 dates to find love, and NOW what's he supposed to do?

The cover job is both charming and disorienting: He goes back over the old footage and edits it so it looks like it could have been a mockumentary from the start, but plays it from the hip so it looks like a mockumentary pretending to be a documentary.

Wouldn't Robert McKee be proud?

Others might not have the same sense of pride. The film will come off as either a clever if ham-fisted attempt to make lemon footage into lemonade, or a pretentious and annoying trip into the avenues of Independent Film by a blind drunkard.

Viewer's choice, and it seems to depend on what the viewer thinks of Myles: Is he annoying, or is he cute?

I thought he was cute, and while the film is hardly a classic, it's worth a try. Look for it on cable (that's where I found it), and if you're sick of it after half an hour, turn it off and not much lost.

20 Dates is enjoyable for what it is: a semi-documentary. It seems as if Berkowitz started out with a good idea but it was corrupted a bit along the way. The big tip-off that this isn't REAL life is that 2 women who have appeared in Playboy make brief appearances. If you really want to see it, catch a matinee or wait for the video.

Malarkey is the best word to describe this trashy film. Presenting itself as a documentary on one man's search for love in LA (yawn), the film is even more about the trials of trying to get this movie finished. Myles Berkowitz in the man in charge here. He wrote it, stars in it, and directs the film. To say that his presence is unpleasant is being nice. I cannot imagine anyone finding this guy attractive, and yet the film never shows that either. Knowing beforehand that most of this picture was staged doesn't help the matter any better. Berkowitz never mentions that part of his film is faked. Although I usually don't care about cursing in films, I couldn't help but be very sickened that such a light-hearted movie would have such a plethora of F-words. Most of the people on-screen are dreadful human beings, and I question Berkowitz to why he must follow a dream that he so obviously isn't cut out for. It's like being nail-gunned to a wall at a party you cannot bear. The best moments are suspiciously off camera, which might be accounted for in the "I made this up" part of the documentary. Loathsome to say the least, I hope Berkowitz never gets behind a camera again.-------- 1