Love in the Time of Money Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)October 24th, 2002
LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONEY
# stars based on 4 stars: 2.0
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten
ThinkFilm
Directed by: Peter Mattei
Written by: Peter Mattei
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Domenick Lombardozzi, Jill Hennessy, Malcolm Gets, Steve Buscemi, Rosario Dawson, Adrian Grenier, Carol Kane, Michael Imperioli
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 10/23/02
Stanley Kubrick is not the only guy who has updated Austrian stories to New York locations. Peter Mattei, inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's classic "Reigen" (better known as "La Ronde" or "The Circle") tries his hand with the Sacher Torte, making the Big Apple in the 1990's the scene of events which in the original take place in old Vienna. Nor is he the first, but adapting Schnitzler to a different time and place and in addition making what would fit nicely on an off-off Broadway stage cinematic is tricky. Mattie's film is no more distinguished than was Roger Vadim's 1964 attempt, "Circle of Love." Schnitzler's popular roundelay of love was told in ten interlocking scenes: two characters appear in each and one of these moves into the next to afford a link. The soldier of the first scene leaves his lady of the evening to appear in the next scene with a parlor maid who departs to be with her wealthy employer who bumps the maid in order to receive his mistress. "Reigen" is a framed play, the closing scene mirroring the first.
Mattei dispenses with soldiers and maids while keeping some of Schnitzler's other people. "Love in the Time of Money," set at a time that every shoe shine kid was investing in speculative stocks and Harvard grads were quitting their corporate jobs to start internet companies, takes loneliness as its theme. People in a lonely city of seven million try to shake away the web of apartness with money (that doesn't work, but maybe it doesn't work only in the movies) and sex (that doesn't work here either). But you can't blame folks for trying.
The opening frame features a hooker, Greta (Vera Farmiga), who shows her wares in a particularly dangerous and deserted street, perhaps to be without competition. She attracts Eddie (Domenick Lombardozzi), an interior designer who then goes to the luxurious pad of Ellen (Jill Hennessy) who in turn has a showdown with her yuppie husband Robert (Malcolm Gets), who visits an artist in his loft, Martin (Steve Buscemi) and so the circle goes. A meets B. B meets C. C meets D, until fourteen characters, all losers in their own special way, never really lose the pain of loneliness and may just be too wrapped up in themselves to make a connection.
Mattie's script features some clever, ironic twists, as when Ellen whines to her husband too wrapped up in selling securities to pay attention to her that she want to travel, to try new foods, to bed different men. She receives an answer she did not expect. When young Nick (Adrian Grenier) asks his girl friend Anna (Rosario Dawson) whether she is breaking up with him, she insists that she is not. But then... When Joey (Carol Kane), a psychic, is asked by bond trader Will (Michael Imperioli) for phone sex, she insists that she does not do that sort of thing, but then...
Bon mots are the name of the game and this cast of largely indie actors do what they can with the script. But "Love in the Time of Money" is really meant for the stage and would be ruined if attempts were made to open it up into something like,say, "The Truth about Charlie." The dialogue is often sharp but Cupid never really takes wing on the big screen.
Rated R. 90 minutes. Copyright 2002 by Harvey Karten at
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