What Just Happened? Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

What just happened indeed

I went along to see What Just Happened, which was probably the reaction of most of the audience. I've thought about it quite a bit and still don't really know what to make of it. I'm not sure at all that the makers knew what kind of film they were making. I thought the tone was all over the place, that the pacing was wildly erratic - in fact I think there's two different films in there trying to get out. I realise what they were trying to do, to make a film that shows someone with an incredibly busy life, full of stresses, trying to cope but for me it didn't work. For example, one of the first things he did was pick his two young kids, from his first wife, and take them to school. We never saw them or his first wife again. There wasn't even a reference to them in the remainder of the film.

I loved some of the scenes where he was trying to reconnect with his second wife. No spoilers, but there is a film in this alone. It just got cluttered up with ..... the clutter of the film. What was the reason for the manic scenes with Bruce Willis? He was a caricature of himself, as was the Director. The film could have done without them, it would then probably have been regarded as an 'intelligent satire ' on the film industry, instead it seems to be a film that lost it's way and ended up as drama that turned out to be a comedy or a comedy that turned out to be a drama but really is neither.

Robert, why?

This film is indescribably tedious and lacking in any entertainment value. Not once were we gripped by any part of it. Presumably it would be of interest to film industry insiders, but isn't that a tiny market? Might as well make a film about the ups and downs in the life of a bachelor stamp collector. If it's meant to make us gasp at how busy the hero (?) is most of us have been there, in far less glamorous jobs, big deal.

A measure of this film's poverty is that no other has ever tempted me to write a review. Seriously, you'll get more pleasure reorganising the contents of your garage.