Touches You

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Listen Up Philip is a messy character-driven piece in which, oddly enough, the narration is the best part of the film. This is not a film for everyone. The two male leads are pretentious fools that, despite all of their knowledge, lack any true wisdom and consistently make terrible choices. By the end, it's difficult to even feel any pity for them. The female characters, on the other hand, are the saving grace of the story and the actresses are terrific in their roles.It's far from a typical storyline. Even with the narration, it's hard to say what the plot is, if there is one at all. The film has us enter and exit these characters lives at their most sad, desperate and difficult. Some will find it to be an insightful dark comedy while others will find it to be a pointless, drab drama that is frustrating to watch. The most bothersome aspect is the unsteady hand-held camera work, which comes and goes needlessly.Listen Up Philip is like only reading the middle chapters of a novel. Fans of Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson and Woody Allen's films may find a lot to enjoy here but if you're not a fan of character studies, this won't be for you.

Writer/director Alex Ross Perry doesn't have much of an ear for natural-sounding dialogue, which is a problem, since "Listen Up Philip" is practically all talk. Jason Schwartzman delivers his lines in a stilted, overprecise way, I guess to convince us that his character really is a "notable" writer and a serious intellectual; occasionally he seems to be channeling in Max Fischer from "Rushmore," but without the irony or humor.It seems to me that someone who writes such clunky, flatfooted prose (he misuses common words like "remiss" and "impart") hasn't earned the right to throw shade on a real writer like Philip Roth, and Jonathan Pryce, as Roth surrogate "Ike Zimmerman," has to struggle to put across some laughably stagy lines. The lowpoint is a cringy scene in which Ike and another alte kocker (who looks suspiciously like Bernard Malamud) pick up two younger women, bring them home and then have to call on Philip for backup. Kudos, on the other hand, to whoever mocked up the jackets for Zimmerman's books, which look exactly like Roth's bestsellers from the 60s… Elizabeth Moss lucked out—she doesn't have to play a nasty, longwinded narcissist, doesn't have to emote like she's reading random pages from a self-published novel (I'm talking about you, narrator Eric Bogosian!), and the few scenes she gets to herself are riveting. The pro reviewers were surprisingly indulgent with this one; maybe they were giving it credit for good intentions—seems like what Perry had in mind was something like "Llewyn Davis" (satirical character study of cranky guy trying to reconcile artistic ambitions with practical demands of life in 20th-century NYC) with a smidge of "Frances Ha" (lighthearted comedy of manners featuring arty Manhattanites, shot with shaky camera and other New Wave flourishes)—but, from our perspective, "Philip" doesn't have much to offer in the way of insight or enjoyment.Perry's new one is getting good notices at BAMcinemaFest; I'll prob'ly watch when it turns up on Netflix or Amazon. Fool me twice, shame on me

About midway through watching this film, I wondered whether it had been written and/or directed by Woody Allen, mainly because of the narration. I found the narration, both use of it and its content, to be very similar to what Woody has done often. I enjoyed having a voice-over both narrating and analyzing the feelings and behaviors of the characters. As others have said, I felt the first half was more engaging, and also found Elizabeth Moss's performance to be excellent. I'm not sure why Jason Schwartzmann was chosen for the male lead, but I'm assuming it was intentional to have someone who looks somewhat like a werewolf and at the same time plays a character who is insufferably arrogant. The film was outstanding and original in the dynamics between the characters which for the most part were deep and complex. I found there were also some humorous moments. Overall I'd say see it especially if you enjoy watching films about people who spend a lot of time thinking.There was one thing I found confusing and that was the time frame: at first I assumed it was the present, nothing to think otherwise. Then I noticed the phones, all house phones, all had wires attached to them. There were no cell phones, no computers. Writers used electric typewriters. Yet I saw nothing else to back up what looked like a pre- 90's or even 80's time frame.

I found this film to be barely watchable at best but not necessarily because I thought it uninteresting or the principal character hopelessly insufferable. Someone should tell Alex Ross Perry that jerky, hand-held cinematography hasn't been considered to be cutting edge or revolutionary since directors such as Godard and Rossellini used it back in the 1950's and 60's (and Mr. Perry--you are no Godard or Rossellini). Woody Allen tried it once 22 years ago with "Husband's and Wives" and has not used it again in the many films he has made since then . All "Listen Up Philip" did for me while I was watching it was make me dizzy and nauseous. This I assume was supposed to be a serious, feature film and intimate character study about two writers---not a documentary or a big action film or a reality TV show in which hand held photography might be appropriate. Camera work which calls attention to itself in such an obvious, annoying way greatly distracts from the story and the characters (not to mention--in this case--making me physically ill).