When Will I Be Loved

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing but Inscrutable Psychosexual Drama.
Review: "When Will I Be Loved?" is a psychosexual snippet written and directed by James Toback. It doesn't seem like a complete story, but a vague character study of a sexually adventurous young woman named Vera (Neve Campbell) who has a way of knowing what she wants and getting it from just about everyone she meets. She allows her lover, Ford (Frederick Weller), a fast-talking hustler always out to make a buck, to introduce her to a wealthy Italian media mogul (Dominic Chianese) who desires her passionately, in exchange for payment in cash.

Vera is interesting, because she knows exactly what she wants and where the source of her power lies. It's not surprising that she succeeds given those conditions. But Vera is so narcissistic that she is thoroughly unlikable. And the character study fails in that her motives are often inscrutable. She seems to know what she wants and perhaps even why she wants it. But we don't. Vera has money. She has power. She may be looking for love, although she has an odd way of going about it. She certainly wants revenge. But that's not the whole story. The film does make the audience wonder about Vera, but we also wonder what the point of it all is. A lot of men want to help Vera discover herself through them. They see her as they want her to be. And she takes advantage. But that's not news. And what advantage she sees in it isn't clear.

Neve Campbell and Frederick Weller contribute good performances. The first third of the film is spent establishing the characters by cross-cutting between them, soundtrack blaring. That's too long and too loud. "When Will I Be Loved?" may be of some interest if you're a fan of psychosexual intrigue. But if I had to describe the film in one word, it would be "inconclusive", both narratively and thematically.

The DVD: Bonus features include an audio commentary by director James Toback, a theatrical trailer, and "Scene Sexplorations", which Neve Campbell and James Toback discuss 4 of the film's most sexual scenes. In the audio commentary, James Toback talks about directorial decisions, story, characters, and filming (which only took 12 days). It's a nice commentary if the movie intrigues you. Subtitles for the film are available in English and Spanish.

Rating:
Summary: Good Movie.... Terrible DVD
Review: First of, I liked this movie. But this is probably the ugliest looking DVD transfer I've ever seen. The picture is grossly over saturated, with skin tones turning a dark orangey-red. In fact the entire movie takes on a dark red hue. The blacks are crushed; there is practically no image detail in the darker portions of a scene. The travesty is that the accompanying trailer has been beautifully transferred, looking brighter, with accurate colors and lovely skin tones and it emphasizes just how deplorable the main feature looks. How could MGM approve this DVD for release? Definitely not recommended. If you want to watch it, try to catch it at the movie theater. Or wait till MGM gets it's act together and releases a proper version on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: The longest 1 hour and 17 minutes of my life.......
Review: I saw Neve Campbell on Carson Daily after her premier in New York. They talked at great length about this 7 minute Lesbian scene in the film and how it was staged by Campbell. I waited for months to see it at the movie theater and it never came. Finally I found it online and ordered it. I had more excitement opening the DVD plastic then the entire film. The BIG Lesbian scene was a joke. The entire time the unknown charcter had her back to the camera. Never saw anything from the front. Never made it to the bed. Boring. The nude scene in the beginning got my attention and then quickly lost it with all the nonsense and dialog in the first 55 minutes of the film. The rule is simple...if you don't have your audience in the first 15 minutes you've lost them. Without the nude scene I would have thrown this one in the trash. The characters were never understood and were all over the map. So much wasted film and no plot. We finally get something going at the 55 minute mark and the film ends at 1 hour and 17 minutes. We have no idea what happens after the big homicide scene. Dumb...dumb...dumb film. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY. Rent it at Blockbuster.....if you don't like the first 15 minutes....walk away before you lose precious time in front of a really bad film. Hence why it never came to the theaters in San Diego...and if it did.....it left just as fast. The interviews with Carson and Ellen were great......a ploy to get Lesbians to buy the DVD.....ladies.....don't do it. You'll be throwing $22 down the drain. Really.

Rating:
Summary: Stupid plot twist
Review: I won't outline the plot (already done) or review the attempt at "intelligent sexploitation" (whatever that means) but I will say the plot has a very stupid angle to it. If Vera wanted to, she could have given her boyfried all or part of $100,000 and kept the $900,000 and he never would have known the difference.

Why she wanted to stir up a nest and enrage her mindless stooge of a boyfried is beyond understanding.

Also - maybe I'm not hip to the intelligent sexploitation thing but the lesbian scene was just thrown in for good measure. I could understand the shower scene as building on the Vera character but the lesbian scene seemed like an afterthought.

Rating:
Summary: While Neve does her best, it's still a terrible movie.
Review: In When Will I Be Loved - a dreadfully schlock art-house movie - Neve Campbell takes a nude shower. And she's oh so nude, yes - even naughtily nude, maybe even titillatingly nude. Neve also walks through a park, propositions a couple of men, feverishly listens to classical music, and kisses a seventy nine year old man, then proceeds to have relations with him after he gives her a million dollars in cash. Oh, and to top it off, Neve, when bored, flirts with bisexuality.

This is pretty much the premise of this luridly preposterous film. I don't know what possessed Neve to do this movie, maybe she's reenacting some pent-up garish fantasy, or maybe she's just in it for kicks; either way When Will I Be Loved reeks of pretentiousness and affectation, and someone definitely needs to tell director James Toback that arty, willowy sex doesn't necessarily make for compulsive viewing.

The actual story, when it finally gets going, centers on Vera. Vera is a type of twenty-first century femme fatale; she's the daughter of rich parents who have just bought her amazing apartment in Manhattan complete with gorgeous views and hardwood floors throughout. Her boyfriend, Ford (played by Fred Weller) is a kind of low-grade hustler, who owes money all over town. In a kind of muddled exposition, rich Italian art collector Count Tommaso (Dominic Chianese) approaches Fred with an offer of $100,000 for the chance to have intimate relations with Vera. Of course, the sleazy Fred accepts the offer and convinces Vera to also accept.

Much of the dramatic impetus of the film takes place when the Count arrives at Vera's lavish apartment. The interplay and flirtatiousness between them both is probably the highlight of the film, as Vera - never one to pass up an opportunity - manages to get the Count increase his offer to $1 million. Vera, whose financial motivations are obvious, steadily begins to play the Count and Fred against each other with disastrous consequences for them both.

The problem with this movie is that there's really only about 40 minutes of actual story worth telling. The first 30 minutes or so comes across as bad improvisation that is full of inane dialogue, and introduces a series of characters that bare no relation to the actual story and are promptly never seen again. There's an inexplicable cameo by Mark Tyson, an overly long job interview with Vera and a Professor (played by the director, James Toback), a pointless scene between Ford and a cohort of his discuss ways to make money, a four-way romp in with Ford in a park, and a scene where Vera videos, then pants and pets with a female friend behind a gauzy curtain in her spacious studio.

Obviously the director is trying to make a statement about the interplay between sex and money, but he dresses it all up with psuedo arty posturing and decorousness that, for the most part, falls terribly flat. One of the most annoying attributes of this film is the dirge-drenched soundtrack where classical pieces are placed opposite contemporary hip-hop sounds and pop music; it eventually becoming terribly intrusive and distracting, especially in the quieter moments involving the interplay between Vera, Ford, and the Count.

Vera is probably the most interesting character in the film and Neve, to her credit, fully inhabits her, as she flits smoothly from flirty and naughty to mischievous and conniving. But not even Neve, in all her naked glory, can save this dreadful psuedo-sensual exercise in second-rate movie making. Mike Leonard February 05.


Rating:
Summary: Studying the Femme Fatale
Review: James Toback seems to have a lot of ideas on his script pad and somehow wanted to piece them all together for this sensual (in the manner of 'Red Shoes Diaries') exploration of a lost generation of money focused, physically inclined young people of New York. When it works, it works very well: when it strays away from the central story line it steps into the vapid role.

Vera (Neve Campbell in her finest role to date) is a sensually beautiful young rich girl whose life is lived in an expensive loft in New York where she dabbles in painting and in classical music recordings. Her current boyfriend is a smarmy young hustler Ford (Frederick Weller in a completely believable portrayal) who is always finding ways to make easy money and in doing so encounters Count Lupo (Dominic Chianese), the 'wealthiest man in Italy' who has seen Vera and desires her. Ford arranges a consignation, talks Vera into having sex with him for money, Vera consents, the young Vera and the older Count have their encounter in Vera's loft and she is paid 1 million dollars. Her distaste for Ford's ruthless manipulation results in the surprising climax of the story and we see Vera returning to her life of searching for love.

All this plays well. The incidentals include the director casting himself as a teacher of African studies with whom Vera is interviewing for a job while she flirts with every handsome lad on the street as they walk. The two encounter Lori Singer, Damon Dash, and Mike Tyson in vignettes that are totally superfluous and amateurishly forgettable. The other problem with this otherwise moody film is the superimposition of Rap music (played loudly whenever Ford is hustling) and the works of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms played equally loudly during Vera's times alone and with partners (one of whom includes a lesbian whose prolonged foray with Vera is shielded by gauze drapery).

Given all of these sidebars of distraction, WHEN WILL I BE LOVED remains a valid view of the sensual sexual but empty encounters that pass as love substitutes in our shallow society today. Grady Harp, January 2005

Rating:
Summary: Dull attempt to portray intelligent eroticism
Review: James Toback's venture into the world of sex=power is a little too protracted for my taste. Neve Campbell shows a broad talent, and is much more than just a bimbo to look at, embracing the character with a believable maturity not seen in her earlier films. This is a sort of arthouse rendering of Indecent Proposal meets last Tango in Paris that asks more questions of it's own script than it answers. The acting is pretty good all round, and although the sex scenes are far from the steamy impression given on the DVD sleeve, they aren't gratutitous or seedy. All that said, boy oh boy is this dull, and you know it's a bad sign when a movie with a running time of only 81 minutes, catches you clock watching. There is a real attempt to portray intimate drama, power plays and the use of sex as a means to an end, as Ms Campbell bounces between boyfriend and millionaire, but you always feel like you were dropped in the middle of a dissertation, and are missing the back story, or relevance to what's on screen. Not an easy flick to catagorize, but certainly not a movie for those seeking tittillation, and those reviewers who have condemned it for lacking in adult material should seek diversion elsewhere. I hate to see a good idea dragged around in such a protracted fashion, and tried to enjoy this movie. But it will however, not live long in the memory of most viewers I suspect.

Rating:
Summary: Annoying Characters and Annoying Movie
Review: Luckily I rented this movie rather than buy it. I found all the characters in this movie annoying which made it very difficult to sit through this one. I didn't think it was sophisticated, but instead rather crude. Not recommended for purchase or even rental.

Rating:
Summary: Neve Campbell gets to play serious headgame.
Review: Neve Campbell gets to play a role that's nice and sexy on the outside, but deep down inside she's bored as well, and is ready to use and abuse the men that she's involved with. It's very different from most of her other movies, more daring than Wild Things, and the opposite of The Company. In this slow-paced and dioalogue driven, and minimal plot film, Campbell is the focal point, and eveything else just doesn't seem to work as a thriller.
At first, we see Campbell(Vera) taking a shower in a fancy bathroom in an expensive loft her parents bought for her in NY. Meanwhile, her boyfriend/pimp(Ford/Frederic Weller) still busy on the phone trying to arrange a gig, and his latest target is the Italian billionaire(Dominic Chianese). Ford ran into one of his ex, and she wanted to him to pay him back the big chunk of money that he owed her. So he's very desperate to make some money. Vera is rich, and she doesn't have to make a living like Ford, and she does things for fun in a way. She pretty much uses Ford as a sex object, and it was obvious that she doesn't love him. Love is not what she cares about. Vera was offered a hundred thousand for to sleep with Chianese, but she demanded one million, and he gave her the money in cash. Afterwards, she lied to her boyfriend that she was not paid a cent, and that Chianese was a fraud. At that point things got very ugly.....
By the time, Vera takes a shower again, she seemed very "fulfilled" after causing misery and tragedy for others, and she smiled at herself in the mirror, and this very moment, I thought she had become Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons!

Rating:
Summary: Neve Turns the Tables
Review: When you picture Neve Campbell, you envision her in
the "Scream" trilogy...a true picture of helpless
innocence and fear.

When you see her in "When WIll I Be Loved", she
completely sheds that image and takes on a role that
will stum NC fans...movie fans.

In a dramatic role, Neve has the gumption of a Hilary
Swank...the same tomboy image...but in this one she is
sly, crafty and convincing...yet another modern-day
testimony to how women can reverse the tables and
actually "control" men. What an innovation.

The movie starts out very slow.... v-e-r-y...s-l-o-w!
But the director is trying to set the stage for a
dramatic ending that is somewhat unpredictable. I
assume many flick lovers turned this off before James
Toback's screenplay had a chance. I hung in there for
one reason...and one reason alone...I think Neve is
priceless...and I love to watch her read scripts as
much as I love to watch her countenance as she
delivers the lines. She is no sex symbol by any means
(don't ever tell her I told you that), but she does
have a screen presence that is unique.

If you can sit through the entire 81 minutes (that's
all), you won't be disappointed. The ending is like a
Russian gymnast landing a "10" on the high beam.

What I didn't like is somewhat minor. The classic
music as a background is totally distracting. It is
so overbearing, you can't hear or focus on the
dialogue. The herky-jerky beginning is totally
neurotic and disjointed. And, I got so irritated at
the male lead (Fred Weller as Ford) I wanted the guy
to just disappear. What a total
a-hole...jerk...controlling macho freak. I have known
too many men like him that attempt to manipulate
others...particularly women...for their own personal
gain. To the casting director's credit, if he wanted
Fred to jerk my chain...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I hope
I never see him in another film.

I don't know what genre to place this film. It plays
out like an Indy classic...but has enough Hollywood in
it to keep you in your seat. A patient viewer will
enjoy it. An action-seeker will hate it. You must
thrive on psychological dramas to sponge up the full
joy of this 2004 release. Neve makes the film...Fred
almost kills it...but in the end, you walk away
fulfilled...at least the women in the audience will
agree. This one puts men in their place.