The OH
in Ohio (*1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Jack and Priscilla Chase are having marital problems. Jack,
a high school biology teacher is falling into a deeper and
deeper depression, because no matter what he does, he can’t
seem to get his wife Priscilla, a highly influential advertising
exec, to achieve sexual satisfaction. After so many years of
unsuccessful attempts, he’s just about to snap. They
go to counseling, but eventually decide to take matters into
their own hands. He moves into the garage and finds himself
a barely legal student mistress. She buys some equipment and
begins to explore. Both of them are now liberated in their
own ways, but is it too late to save the marriage, now that
they have what they want?
The movie starts out pretty well, but the comedy just doesn’t
have the stamina you might expect or hope for. The laughs are
never really all that big, but they are relatively consistent
for the first fifteen or twenty minutes. Paul Rudd (Jack) is
on as per usual, interjecting his typical style. Parker Posey
(Priscilla) isn’t exactly hilarious at any given time,
especially in this movie, but her character is at least charming
and interesting. Keith David is promising as the coach/guidance
counselor best friend of Jack. All the pieces are coming together.
Then it all goes limp with no chance of recovery.
Once the conflict really starts to get moving, the characters
become increasingly one-dimensional and dull. None of them
are particularly likable the more you get into it, which is
a shame, because they certainly are presented to us as if they
should be. But I can’t really get behind either part
of a relationship, when we don’t even see them make an
effort. They eventually get to the point where any problem
they come across is simply accepted. No attempt is made to
reconcile or discuss what’s going on. They’re both
babies, and it’s not fun to watch and certainly not relatable.
The other major problem is that we aren’t shown the
good stuff. The timeline jumps sporadically throughout the
picture. But I would imagine that any talking or discussions
that led to him moving out into the garage could be tragically
funny. There are all sorts of major transitions the characters
go through, but we aren’t privy to for whatever reason.
Instead, we’re only shown the end result and thus left
wondering what exactly happened. It would be a little better
if maybe what they did show was funny, but it really got boring
and extremely unbelievable. I wish Danny Devito’s character
(Wayne the Pool Guy) was left out entirely. Then maybe they
would have been forced to come up with some interesting scenes.
This film puts the Oh in B-oh-ring.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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