20 Dates Review
by Murali Krishnan (murali24 AT my-dejanews DOT com)April 15th, 1999
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20 Dates
[2.5/4.0]
Myles Berkowitz thought it would be interesting to combine his two biggest failures--his professional life and his personal life. Being a recently divorced, failed filmmaker, his idea is to make a documentary about finding love by filming himself going on dates with women. Just meeting women is difficult for Berkowitz, but he must also persuade them to allow him to put the date under the microscope of the camera. It is hard to kindle romance when followed by a film crew. He must wrestle with his financier who believes that Berkowitz' approach is too boring and that there must be more prurient and marketable items in the final product. Another big obstacle is that he is taking both the dates and his film very seriously. He must deal with the issue that if he is successful at finding love along the way, would it be possible to attend the remaining dates with other women?
The concept of portraying real romance in a documentary is a very compelling one because of the way it would compare with the view of romance that is usually depicted in film. It is Berkowitz' intention that the film takes both a serious and comic look at this concept. He mostly fails at the former, but succeeds at the latter. It is hard to imagine that anyone who is taking a date seriously would consent to allowing two extra people along to handle the camera and sound recording. This makes any serious exploration doomed to failure, and it usually also gives the women an unflattering opinion of Berkowitz.
It seems that Berkowitz has kept the film from becoming a muddled mess by staging much of what is portrayed. The surreptitiously recorded discussions with Elie, the film's funder, are quite funny, but not believable. Among many other questions, if Elie is opposed to the concept of the film to begin with, why is he so insistent that Berkowitz attend exactly 20 dates? The interaction between Berkowitz and strangers on the street all seem real and are often entertaining. The interaction with some of the women he actually dates sometimes seem scripted. How is it that some of the women can react negatively to Berkowitz, even threaten to sue him for taping them, yet apparently allow him to use the footage in the final film? If Berkowitz had been up front and admitted that some of the film was dramatized for the sake of comedy, it would have been easy to forgive, because much of the film was entertaining. Instead, there are too many inconsistencies to ignore, and the viewer might feel cheated for taking it seriously. However, the film can be rather entertaining if not taken seriously and viewed for its comedy.
Recommended. The most annoying aspect of the film is the implication that all the events were real, when there are too many parts that appear staged. Berkowitz himself is a rather uninteresting person, but his interaction with seemingly random people is entertaining and sometimes hilarious.
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(c) 1999 Murali Krishnan
The Art House Squatter
http://ArtHouseSquatter.com
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