“That’s terrifying,” deadpans Daphne, though she pledges to herself to take a six-month sabbatical from drinking and men, determined to break the messy pattern of her emotional life. Her older friend and confidante, Ingrid ( Kyra Sedgwick), suggests she take a break and spend some time alone. While figuring out what’s next, she moves back into the pool house of her married half-sister Billie (Lindsay Sloane), seemingly not for the first time. She was convinced he was “the one,” but seems to have sabotaged that hope with a one-night stand with Jed (Ben Esler), which caused her also to abruptly quit her job. And on the evidence of their soporific dialogue here, Woodley, Dornan and Stan are not going to cause Aaron Sorkin any sleepless nights.ĭaphne (Woodley) is reeling from the end of a four-year relationship with Adrian (Matthew Gray Gubler). But Doremus is no Mike Leigh, whose process involves extended rehearsal periods of improvisation and experimentation to refine characters and storylines. The massed singalong to Losing My Religion is close to unbearable, but it’s over in the roll of an eye.Īnd you will, anyway, almost certainly be watching with a remote in hand.No such magic elevates the stubbornly wan new film, which was developed from a basic outline with backstories, written by Doremus with novelist Jardine Libaire the actors collaborated to flesh out their own characters and dialogue. This is an easy-going sitcom universe that sooths more than it challenges. Unlike the recent, superior Saint Frances - another tale of a woman on the cusp - Endings, Beginnings makes few gestures to the current zeitgeist.
Nobody will confuse her emotional journey with that of an Ingmar Bergman character, but the charm of the presentation makes up for the lack of substance. By the close, the sense of a young woman facing up to her own insecurities does emerge. Playing the less intellectually nuanced competitor - his social-media tag is “Frank Surfer Buddy” - Stan need only growl and flex to stake his romantic claim. The character would actually be a little more compelling if he did lean more towards Celtic caricatures.īy the close of Endings, Beginnings, the sense of a young woman (Daphne) facing up to her own insecurities does emerge. Like Rory in Gilmore Girls (there’s a comparison you didn’t see coming), he consistently eludes to great learning, but rarely says anything that demonstrates this alleged erudition. No enormous truths are revealed when he is in his cups.Īlways a charming actor, Dornan, in truth, has precious little to work with here.
Jack doesn’t lean towards any incontinent spouting of Yeats. I suppose we should congratulate the filmmakers on not turning the latter character into a twinkle-voiced Irish stereotype. Throwing off any serious effort at structure, the film meanders amiably after young Daphne (Shailene Woodley) as she bounces between hunky love-machine Frank (Sebastian Stan) and hunky writer Jack (Jamie Dornan). But there is something delicious about the sheer indulgence of the thing. There are more reasons to make fun of Endings, Beginnings (as you will soon read). If the film had gone on a little longer we might have happened upon Adele. Just check out the soundtrack on his latest romantic drama. The Californian director owes something to the mumblecore pioneers that came before, but his approach is a little more mainstream, a little more bourgeois, a little more cosy. Like Crazy from 2011 - in which Alton Yelchin and Felicity Jones loved each other over great distances - showed his talents to their best advantage. Drake Doremus has, over the past decade or so, been winning awards at Sundance for his flighty, drifty romances.
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