Century Hotel

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Idea, Enjoyable Film!
Review: Century Hotel has one of the most inrtiguing plots ever turned into a movie. It is the story of the life of a hotel room. The film tells seven tales of events which have occured in room 720 over the course of almost 80 years. Century Hotel, a fictional hotel, was opened in 1921. A newlywed couple arrive on opening night on their honeymoon. In 1933, an oriental women is mysteriousl prepared for to meet her husband, waiting anxiously to start a new life in a strange place. After World War II ends, a couple re-unites in the room, that is to say, two couples, but three people. A man and his fiance, and the man's homosexual boyfriend, who's relationship is unbeknownst to the fiance. In 1953, a film noir nightmare takes place, invovling detectives, missing spouses, and money. Then, we visit the 1960s, where a prostitute finds true love with a client. Emerging in the 1980s, a reclusive rock star conducts an affair with the made. Finally, on the eve of the new millenium, two new age youths ren-dez-vous in the newly restored room.

The idea is brilliant, the film is well done. One of the strange things with the film is that it is very unconventionally put together. Unlike most episodic films, where each story occurs after a previous one, these seven tales are interspliced. You see a bit of one story, then a bit of the next, then the next, then go back to a previous one and see more, then go to another.

What really makes this film is the acting. The stellar standout is Lindy Booth, in two roles. She is fantastic. I didn't even know she was both characters until the credits at the end. And although all the stories are intriguing, the 1921 vignette is my favorite one.

A large Canadian production, Century Hotel will probably not be fully appreciated in the United States. However, if a Hollywood exec sees it, maybe they'll realize that it would make a perfect big budget american star studded extravaganza. If the haphazard editing would be changed into a more typical style, and some really big named stars come in to play the parts.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting idea with mixed results
Review: I feel like this plot has been done before - vignettes about the various occupants of a single hotel room - but I was still intrigued by this movie. The setting is a hotel in a cosmopolitan Canadian city. The stories - set in 1921, 1933, 1945, 1953, 1968, the late '80s to early '90s, and the turn of the millennium - do not follow each other in chronological order but are broken into short scenes and jumbled together in a creative if sometimes confusing (especially early on) manner.
As the box cover says, there are four lost souls, three love stories and one murder, the murder being part of one of the love stories. Some characters are easier to sympathize with than others. I really felt drawn to the sad Asian woman in an arranged marriage in the Depression era. I also rooted for the eccentric cuckold seeking his wife with the aid of a hotel detective in the noirish '50s story.
Mia Kirshner is sweetly seductive as the prostitute who agrees to annual liaisons with a besotted customer. Unlike the other stories, this piece allows for a passage of time within the story as we see the two meet for brief occasions over the next few years.
Other characters left me cold, like the two gay war veterans who betray one's fiance to satisfy their own sexual urges. Then there are the two millennial youths planning what turns out to be a suicide pact. The girl in this case was selfish and dishonest, yet the ending is supposed to be some magical completion of a circle. It was an unsatisfying ending.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: While I will admit that my true reason for watching Century Hotel was that I am a diehard Our Lady Peace fan, and frontman Raine Maida stars along side his wife Chantel Kreviazuk in the 70's scene, I was nothing less than amazed by this movie. The plot was nothing less than captivating, although the dvd was an hour and a half long, I felt as if I had only been watching for half an hour. The way the stories of the different decades intertwine with one another is beautiful, and definately leaves you waiting in anticipation for the next time each decade comes into focus. Each decade is different yet the characters all seem to be after the same things, love and inner peace. Although you only see each of them for a short time, it is very easy to relate to each of the characters in Century Hotel, regardless of the decade the scene takes place in. My only complaint about this movie isn't even in the movie itself, but rather in the Character bio feature of the DVD, whoever did the writeups has the years wrong on the release of Clumsy...1997, not 1999 as well as some other small errors, but like I said that has nothing to do with the movie. Century Hotel was beautifully made, the acting was amazing and I definately recommend this movie!