IN YOUR EYES

Stars: Zoe Kazan, Michael Stahl-David, Jennifer Grey, Nikki Reed, Mark Fauerstein, Steve Howey, Steve Harris and Preston Bailey.
Writer: Joss Whedon.
Director: Brin Hill

Rating: 2.5/5

Indulging in the kind of starry-eyed, low-profile magic-realism project that only directing a Marvel-backed blockbuster will facilitate, writer Joss Whedon threatens to turn all his fanboy followers into diabetics should they seek out director Brin Hill’s take on the Firefly scribe’s ultra-saccharine romantic fantasy, In Your Eyes.

Core demographic devotees of The Avengers (and their parents, who fondly remember his Buffy the Vampire Slayer series) left bewildered by Whedon’s last under-the-radar effort, the modern retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, will find their fan love strained further by this twee, simple-minded love story. The hipster/festival crowd who might otherwise warm to such an offbeat idea are just as likely to react against the under-developed premise, suggesting that rainy afternoon cable viewers will be the film’s likely audience.  

The ‘delightfully dorky’ Zoe Kazan plays Rebecca, an East Coast society gal who is feeling increasingly ill at ease with the airs and graces she must put on to advance the career of her boorishly ambitious hospital administrator husband, Phillip (a slimy Mark Fauerstein). Same time, different place; pretty-boy ex-con Dylan (Michael Stahl-David) is trying to make a new life for himself as a mechanic in a seedy New Mexico town. Stahl-David gets to play his bad-boy dreamboat to the hilt, ably assisted by the production design team who have him living a loner’s life in a caravan overlooking a picturesque gorge; he is usually dressed in a white singlet and spends his free time planting a flower garden in the glow of early evening sunlight.

When Rebecca and Dylan connect telepathically and they both (rather too quickly) cope with the fact they can talk to each other across a continent, an unlikely romance blossoms.  All the expected highs and lows that could manifest from this predicament are played with conviction by Kazan and Stahl-David, who generate a modicum of chemistry despite next-to-no screen time together. How they deal with their secret allows for some meagre comedy (she gets in his head intrusively while he is trying to woo Nikki Reed) and one saucy bout of self-love, the sensations conveyed despite the space between them.

There are a few too many ‘Hey, who were you talking to?’ close-calls with support players; it is never made clear why the pair need to speak aloud when conversing, but…well, they just do. Nor is it ever coherently explained how they can turn the ‘gift’ off (or turn it back on) or why they never connected for all the years he was in prison or she was being romanced by Phillip. The all-too predictable climax is on the back of some wildly convoluted third-act developments that puts way too much strain on the premise and audience suspension of disbelief.

However, these kinds of film’s do find a great deal of love amongst the die-hard romantics; be very careful in whose company you deride such malarkey as the Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour weepie Somewhere in Time or Sandra Bullock’s letter-box love-story The Lakehouse, both of which awkwardly mix fantasy and romance yet have proven inexplicably enduring. The same following is likely to grow for In Your Eyes, a disposable but not entirely unlikable confection that feels like a first-timer’s passion project and not the work of an A-list writer of Whedon’s stature.

Comments

[Faye Kane ♀ girl brain]

This is the most perceptive analysis that I have seen.

Yes, it totally sux that they both accept that they can mind read across 2,000 miles by magic after less than a minute—which all movies do when a character discovers something impossible. The writers of these scenes don't want to "waste" time they could use to tell their story, and completely miss the fact that the audience feels cheated. I expected better from Wheedon.

> it is never made clear why the pair need to speak aloud when conversing,

Yes, I noticed that too, and such blatant plot holes without even a Deus Ex Machina derail the story for me.

> it never explained how they can turn the ‘gift’ off (or turn it back on)

That doesn't bother me. Explaining it would be like when the guy in a science fiction movie explains to someone how the ship's propulsion works so9 that the audience knows. It's okay for something in a movie to be mysterious and even impossible, but the characters MUST act like real people would. My belief is that the link was always nascent, but it took the powerful trauma of Becky to force the comm channel open. It happens again during traumas, and each time it happens, it takes less and less to trigger it until they can turn it on and off at will.

or why they never connected for all the years he was in prison or she was being romanced by Phillip.

See the above. I figure the communication pipe was still undeveloped. And it did happen sometimes, like her mother's death. They would have interpreted them as daydream fantasies. The husband said he interpreted her physical disruptions as seizures.

Ultimately, they thought the voice was just in their head, and for 20 years it never occurred to either of them to talk back to it out loud.

> There are a few too many ‘Hey, who were you talking to?’ close-calls with support players

ALMOST too many, but they were executed well, except for the plot hold that they should have pretended to use a cell phone.

MY big problem was with the ending.

At least it wasn't what I expected: that she is given antipsypsychotics that block the transmission, or giving her a brain operation that did that permanently.

But as it is, the ending was sooo disappointing. I feel like the film editor forgot the last two minutes of the film.

And Wheedon missed the possibility of showing us what they are both thinking on the train. The words could have been superimposed, excited counterpoint to their physical inaction, and might even have been hard to understand because so much emotion is going back and forth. 20 seconds of kiss was not enough payoff.

Wheedon went far out of his way not to over-sexualize this film (the masturbation scene notwithstanding. He went TOO far out of his way. For example, the hands in underpants part was far too short (less than a second). I had to rewind it and watch that scene again, because I was sure it must be there. And there should have been topless nudity in the mirror and Becky completely naked from behind (with emphasis on the "behind"!)

It should have ended with them tearing off their clothes and fu*king in the boxcar while a torrent of incoherent emotions are flooding between them. Instead, we got NONE. The last scene should have been Dylan seen naked from behind between her legs. She should have been squeezing his upper body with her arms around him (and squeezing his lower body with something else).

But as it is, the ending feels like going on a wonderful, exciting date, then walking away without even a kiss. The audience feels frustrated and cheated, at least I do. The end made me feel like when the couple that ties me to their bed brings me to the edge of orgasm but never lets me cum and leaves me tied up all night to make sure I don't.

But I gave it a 10 on Amazon to balance the zeroes.

--faye kane ♀ girl brain
sexiest astrophysicist you'll ever see naked.