NYCPainter

Forty Shades of Blue (2005)

Vain, Dull, Stupid. . . Excruciating!

As several other reviewers pointed out, the principle theme of this film was boredom without redemption, and that's precisely what the viewer experiences. However it does succeed in what seems to be its intent: to show the unrelenting misery and suffocating dullness of its main character's life. . . a good dose of intravenously administered sodium pentathol would have helped the viewer survive this. However, without the aid of drugs, the effect is one of acute claustrophobia and overwhelming apathy as it pertains to the development of the characters. Add to this the endlessly dismal and muddy camera work, and you end up with 107 minutes of wasted film stock. I saw this at the Film Forum here in NYC, famous for the patience of its audience, and for the first time in my memory at this venue viewers were walking out before the end. In one of the few seminal lines of this bomb, the Russian character Laura remarks with exasperation that "Americans are so Spoiled!" Indeed they are. That Ira Sachs was somehow able to obtain the money to produce and distribute this dreary nonsense masquerading as emotional insight was an extreme and unforgivable indulgence on the part of some misguided benefactor.