rooprect
As you can guess by my title, this isn't a review of the entire film. Just a warning. From as much as I could take, I can report that this movie is NOT family friendly, NOT a good date movie, and generally unsettling altogether. I'm talking about gratuitous nude and sex scenes that are supposed to be either erotic or funny--I couldn't tell which--but they were just plain off-putting.There's a joke early in the film: on a big marker board in her apartment, Molly writes a list of things she wants to do in life. Some are mildly amusing. One item is "anal sex" which, sure, got a chuckle out of me when I read it in passing. But the problem is the director wouldn't leave it there. As if sensing that the "anal sex" gag was one of his finest career moments, he hammers it where the sun don't shine. Literally. Not only do we return to the same joke on the markerboard, but now they have to talk about it, then they have to do it, then do it again, and possibly a 3rd time (we really weren't counting), each time shown with uncomfortable, in-your-face nudity, full frontal male, full frontal female, anatomical parts swollen and red, rubbing against equally bloated parts for awkwardly long shots.If I want to see porn, I'll watch porn. But if I want to see a supposedly fun & quirky romcom, I don't really want to see swollen genitalia, repeating the same lame gag over & over.Did Molly ever cross "Anal sex" off her list? From the way the director was dwelling on it, my guess is that's the big reveal at the end of the movie, and I certainly wasn't going to stick around until then. Struggling to salvage my suddenly awkward date, I ejected the DVD and popped in a Hugh Grant flick. Hey, if Hugh couldn't rescue the situation nobody can.Painful sex scenes aside, I thought the acting in "Molly's" was a joke. No, really, I literally thought it was a joke. For the first 10 minutes of contrived, melodramatic lines and nonsensical non sequiturs, I honestly thought the opening scene was a parody, and I was waiting for the camera to pull back to reveal that we were watching a bad rehearsal for an amateur community play. But the camera never pulled back. "Molly's Theory of Relativity" *is* that amateur community play, complete with voyeuristic sex scenes designed to compensate for a bad production by injecting shock value. Or should I say schlock value. Schlong value?I can't say if the fault lies with the actors, the script, the editing or the directing. Possibly the confluence of all 4 resulted in this cinematic apocalypse we have here. My advice to all of the aforementioned would be to never work with the same people in this same context ever again. Like the Star Wars Christmas Special in 1978, some things are best erased by the sands of time.If you look at the IMDb votes, you'll see more people rate it a "1" than all the 8s, 9s and 10s put together, so don't just take my word for it, the movie apparently annoys a lot of people. I give this film 3 stars out of 10 simply because the director knew to take the cap off the lens. Unfortunately.
stacy-ring
Reed Birney was new to me until I attended a preview of the new Broadway show "Casa Valentina" last week. Now I want to see everything this extraordinary actor has ever done. I started with a film I'd never heard of, "Molly's Theory of Relativity." Not only did Reed blow me away again, the entire cast was superb. This guy can do anything. He had me in tears playing a father, somewhat estranged from his son and daughter-in-law. Reed, and another Broadway veteran, Tony winner Cady Huffman, were the moral centers of this wonderful movie. I have a grown son and daughter and this magical movie rang true with so many life lessons about family. The writer of this movie has an amazing ear when it comes to dialog. I highly recommend "Molly's Theory of Relativity" to anyone who likes to be thrilled by the discovery of so many talented artists, all at once.
