Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Based on the novel by David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men follows grad student Sara Quinn (Julianne Nicholson) as she attempts to make sense of a recent breakup by interviewing a succession of almost unreasonably dysfunctional men. It’s clear right from the get-go that Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is going to leave the majority of viewers cold, as first-time filmmaker John Krasinski has infused the proceedings with a pervasively avant-garde sensibility that proves disastrous – with the movie’s less-than-engrossing atmosphere exacerbated by the complete and total absence of compelling characters. This is despite the fact that Krasinski has populated the film with an impressive roster of performers; in addition to Nicholson’s strong turn as the damaged protagonist, the movie boasts stand-out work from such recognizable actors as Christopher Meloni, Joey Slotnick, Will Forte, and Frankie Faison. (The latter appears in the movie’s one wholeheartedly compelling sequence, as his character recalls his father’s menial job as a washroom attendant.) There’s little doubt that the film’s lack of authenticity ranks high on its list of problems, as Krasinski, saddled with aggressively pretentious source material, places an ongoing emphasis on pompous, eye-rollingly stagy instances of dialogue (ie nobody, at any time, has ever talked the way these people talk). It consequently goes without saying that Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is, for the most part, far more successful as an actor’s showcase than as a fully-realized movie, and it’s impossible not to wonder just what Krasinski originally set out to accomplish with this mess.

*1/2 out of ****