RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE (Katrin Bowen). 88 minutes. Opens Friday (November 8) at Carlton Cinema. For times, see listings. Rating: N
If there are any sincere ideas about modern love buried within Katrin Bowen’s Random Acts Of Romance, they’re barely visible beneath all the frivolity, contrivance and foolishness.
The trivial comedy about intersecting couples revaluating their lives and partners deals superficially with the challenges facing modern relationships. There’s the middle-aged woman (a fine Amanda Tapping) who unleashes fury on her young husband (Zak Santiago) for being a perpetual fuck-up. Then there’s the uptight, well-to-do couple (Robert Moloney and Ready Or Not’s Laura Bertram) whose affection for each other is as dry as yours will be for the film.
Conversations between these couples and the single folks who orbit them rarely bother with real emotion or insight. Instead, the dialogue tries to be provocative and funny (it’s neither), earnestly mimicking the look-at-me writing of Diablo Cody, or worse, Paul Haggis.
The latter’s style of mosaic storytelling is especially evident here. Like Haggis’s Crash and upcoming Third Person, Random Acts Of Romance hinges on coincidence and extreme ways for people to connect, whether through a car accident or a kidnapping.
Such unlikely scenarios suck up all the oxygen, leaving very little breathing room for genuine character or feelings.
