![]() Even more disquieting are the self-proclaimed prophet’s accusations and doomsday predictions about the writer’s future. Moving in bigger and grander literary circles, beckoned by more lucrative deals and spending long hours with an attractive marketing agent (Rowena King), he soon forgets the little people behind his success.Īround the same time Rob encounters an ominous old man (Christopher Lloyd) who seems to know all about him. True to her word, she schedules an extensive promotional tour that propels his story to the top of the bestseller list, while at the same time keeping the budding author away from home.Īlthough he misses his family, Rob can’t resist being swept up in his newfound fame and self-importance. Although it seems like a long shot, especially with the arrival of several rejection letters, Rob eventually finds a publisher willing to take a chance on his manuscript.Ĭamile (Frances Conroy) is not only confident she can plug his book titled A Perfect Day, but she also warns the Harlans to expect their quiet lives to change. Loving and supportive, Allyson optimistically tells her dejected spouse to see his employment situation as a blessing and encourages him to finish writing a novel he has been working on secretly. However, he confesses the truth to his wife (Paget Brewster). Confused and disappointed he tells his father (Jude Ciccolella) and daughter (Maggie Geisland) he resigned, hoping that will make him look like less of a failure. So he is completely unprepared when instead he is fired. ![]() It’s supposed to echo the rock and roll nature of our heroes, but after a while, like them, it starts to sound corny.Robert Harlan (Rob Lowe) heads to work one perfect morning prepared to accept a previously offered promotion. The Velvet Underground, Gogol Bordello, more Manson. A subplot involving a cute kid’s attempts to find his parents starts out promisingly, but makes no sense when the team drive him through his village without him uttering a whimper. The script is scalpel sharp in some places, flabby as the well-blocker in others. Inconsistency is A Perfect Day’s biggest problem. For someone so effortlessly heroic, he comes off as a bit of an arse. “Nobody wears black panties to a war zone,” growls B appreciatively as Kurylenko’s character is forced to pee in public. Neither are allowed to do much that challenges the assumed dominance of the older, gnarlier men. Kurylenko’s character, an ex- of Mambrú’s who’s auditing the team, is a nag Thierry is is a wimp. Del Toro and Tim Robbins (playing a wily tomcat lifer called B) have fun with the sparkier bits of dialogue, even if their rapport crushes any hope of co-stars Olga Kurylenko and Mélanie Thierry making a dent. The dynamic between the team members is a little more elegant. The drama is so over-cooked it bubbles out of the pot. In the aftermath of the team finding a body swinging from a tree in the back garden of a bombed-out house, de Aronoa cranks out Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams Are Made of This. The lurches in tone are brutal, accompanied by crass soundtrack choices that emphasise the jolt. But De Aronoa doesn’t have Altman’s poise and he struggles to straddle comedy and tragedy. ![]() Like M*A*S*H it makes sport of the neutered dreams of those who sign up to help and find themselves blocked by protocol. ![]() Like Michel Hazanavicius’s The Search before it, A Perfect Day is a tribute to the tenacity of men and women who risk their safety to spend their time feeling frustrated and useless. ![]()
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