When Will I Be Loved (2004)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

James Toback

Writer (WGA):

James Toback (written by)

Release Date:

10 September 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Revenge is a dish best served hot.

Plot:

Feeling undervalued by her boyfriend, a young woman begins to explore her sexuality with other people.

Plot Keywords:

Sex | Italian | New York | Seduction | Erotica

Cast

Neve Campbell	...	Vera Barrie
Fred Weller	...	Ford Welles (as Frederick Weller)
Ashley Shelton	...	Ashley
James Toback	...	Professor Hassan Al-Ibrahim Ben Rabinowitz
Alex Feldman	...	Alexei
Brandon Sommers	...	Brandon
Oliver 'Power' Grant	...	Power
Mike Tyson	...	Himself
James Parris	...	James
Cara Hamill	...	Cara
Christina Rotholz	...	Christina
Bridget Lee Hall	...	Bridget
Thomas Patti	...	Michael
Lori Singer	...	Herself
Jean-Pierre Vertus	...	Jean-Pierre

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity and language.

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:R21 | USA:R (certificate #40555) | Iceland:16 | South Korea:18 | USA:TV-MA (cable rating) | Portugal:M/16 | Australia:MA | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Little Wing Production

Goofs:

Continuity: The painting that Vera painting in her apartment early in the film is immediately a different painting when the camera changes angle, and then a few scenes later the painting reverts to its original form.

Quotes:

[Ford is trying to convince Vera to sleep with the Count for money]
Ford: I'm a mentor. I'm not a hustler. I'm a conduit, I'm a circuit. Listen... Listen to me very carefully. My whole mission on this planet right now in relation to you is to introduce you to yourself. You know that. You're a deeply sexual human being. You have major erotic power...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Outsider (2005)

Soundtrack:

Memories

Bitterly disappointing

This movie got a lot of undeserved juice from Roger Ebert's four-star review, and it's just awful. I've liked some of Toback's other work, particularly "Fingers", but this thing feels like a really boring home movie on autopilot. It's purportedly about the non-adventures of this bratty little rich girl (Neve Campbell) and her no-account boyfriend (Fred Weller) and, ultimately, their scheme to seduce a rich Italian count (Dominic Chianese) out of some major money. But it takes some time to get to this plot point, and up till then, the movie just meanders in a cinema-verite sort of way that makes it seem like Toback can use it as an excuse for the picture being a dud. It's like he's saying, "Well, whatever we shot, we shot. I can't be held responsible for the randomness of events."

The movie goes from Neve Campbell meeting one person on the street to another in what I'm sure Toback would insist was "character development", but it's done in such a way that it all rings false. It's scripted without being scripted. In another words, it's contrived. When Neve's college professor (played by Toback) explains what he thinks is going on with Neve and her head games, you can almost hear the gears locking in the background. It might be the most mechanical ad-libbed sequence in history.

Toback's use of celebrity here is also peculiar. The Mike Tyson cameo is pretty funny; he actually gives the movie a momentary spark. But when Toback has Neve recognizing a bit actress like Lori Singer on the street like she's Jane Fonda, I wonder what world he's living in. This whole "expository" part feels like padding, like Toback didn't have enough legit material to go around. Then, when the action shifts to the "scheme" in the final twenty minutes, it's good - it's the best part of the film. But the effect is a little jarring. Toback goes from a lazy, dawdling atmosphere to a sequence that's scripted tighter than Abbott & Costello's Who's on First, and it just doesn't work. The two forms don't really mesh, and you get the feeling Toback only had twenty good minutes in him to begin with - the rest is like a warm-up, like running in place to get the circulation going. And I hate to sound like an old prude (which I'm far from being), but the nude shower scene is an absolute cheap shot; Neve Campbell is just being exploited here. It has nothing to do with her character or anything else; it's completely gratuitous. But I guess anything goes when you have no material. Minus credits, this thing is barely over an hour and fifteen minutes. It hardly seems worth being made.