When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie reminded me so much of "The Breakup". Take away the funny characters in that movie and add down to earth problems of work expectancies and the couples boredom in their relationship as it plays out in Flannel Pajamas. There is nudity in the first half of the movie, but as their relationship matures and as the husband can't see the small subtleties and their is no more nude scenes, just another breakup.I liked this movie better than the breakup because it handles the relationship and the breakup in a very realistic way. There are no smartypants here, no grand reunion of the couple, just the will of one of them to get things to work. Nothing that this charming actor can do.

I was first introduced to this movie by seeing the trailer every time we went to see a movie at The Angelika in the past month or two. That trailer captured my attention for two reasons: the intensity and honesty I saw on the faces of the actors, and the over-modulation of the musical score which rang to the point of distortion. Regardless, it seemed clear this was a movie we were going to go see when it came out. A talky movie following a failed relationship? Sounded like my life (a few times over)! I suppose how much you enjoy this movie depends on what you expect to get out of it. There is no great resolution, no massive personal growth or moment of sudden clarity. Like any relationship which ends, it all depends on how you look at it. You can continue to expand the picture until it all loses focus, or you can narrow in on single moments. There is no right and wrong.The film follows the relationship of Stuart and Nicole (Justin Kirk and Julianne Nicholson) from meeting on a blind date to dating to marriage and ultimately to separation. Stuart basically sets the stage for the relationship when he declares at the first date that neither he nor Nicole are "evil" (a term he uses to describe Nicole's best friend). He's right - they aren't, they are two kind people who love each other (in some ways) and who want to build a life with each other. Yet throughout the film it becomes clear that love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship. Much like real life, the film is a collection of scenes where people do what they feel is right at the time, even what the think will be right in the future...but good intentions can't erase the facts that often we develop relationships with people who simply aren't suited for us. A successful relationship requires love, commitment, hard work, understanding, and more than anything similar direction and similar priorities.Maybe Stuart and Nicole and both a bit too selfish - they both seem to act out of pure self-interest, Nicole using "I want" frequently and Stuart setting down his own rules and agendas and expecting Nicole to follow them. Perhaps they each carry too much baggage. They both give in to each other without really meaning it, the kind of actions which result in built-up resentment. More than anything, I noticed that the characters refuse to cry in front of each other. To me, that was enough to doom the relationship.In a Q&A session after the film, writer/director Jeff Lipsky explained that they deleted more than 50 scenes in an effort to keep both characters on a rather even playing field. His greatest reward is that people leave the theater arguing over who is more to blame for the failure of the relationship. And those arguments are not split by gender. In the end, there is more than enough blame to go around. The story is about 50% quasi-autobiographical, but the most powerful scenes are fictional (such as the conversation between mother-in-law and son-in-law in the cafeteria).The performances are all strong, and particular attention is paid to Stuart's brother Jordan (Jamie Harrold), who is mentally unstable and quite flamboyant, often overshadowing his sibling. I'm a bit too much like that character though, and with a nice collection of funny lines he is the hardest to dislike. Personally I preferred the performances of Nicholson and of her mother (played by Rebecca Schull).Overall the film is quite good, certainly successful in its own way, and it stays with you...some people might not appreciate that, but I do. As Mr. Lipsky says, he wanted to give you "something to chew on". He accomplishes that, and more.Oh, and as the credits ran, there was the same haunting song from the trailer...and the damn thing was STILL over-modulated to the point of semi-distortion.

Greetings again from the darkness. Having seen the trailer a few times, I had pretty much decided this was not one I would see. Then I saw Roger Ebert raving about it and since he is a movie critic god, it was obvious I needed to see it.Now I am not going to write the great Mr. Ebert and ask for my money back, but I must admit I am somewhat baffled by his comments. While there are moments of brilliant intimacy, for the most part this movie is just about the arc of 90% of the relationships today. I wish that were more of a compliment, but instead I compare this to "Before Sunset", the obnoxious remake to Richard Linklater's 1994 gem "Before Sunrise". In other words, it is 2 plus hours of listening to two fairly unlikeable people TALK incessantly about themselves and their relationship. This is definitely no "My Dinner With Andre".Of course, writer/director Jeff Lipskey tosses is many more characters ... probably too many ... to show the complexities within this or any other relationship. Julianne Nicholson and Justin Kirk are the couple and while Ms. Nicholson exudes a camouflaged charm, Mr. Kirk is little more than a smarmy, unable to communicate about anything important dude who is just like most guys. We pretty much dislike him from the opening scene in the café when his self-centeredness is obvious to all but Ms. Nicholson.I know little of Mr. Lipsky, but I am not sure if his objective was to visualize the issues of most relationships, point out the lack of judgment exhibited by most women when choosing a partner or some other deep philosophical issue. All I know is that the ending was obvious from the inane opening sequence, although there were some very poignant moments in between.The best part of the film may be the closing credit song "Thursday" by Asobi Soksu. As for Roger Ebert, my opinion of him is not damaged one bit, as what makes watching movies so wonderful is the slight chance that one may hit you where it counts. "Flannel Pajamas" did this for him, but not for me.

Flannel Pajamas, which concerns a New York thirty-something mixed (Jewish-Catholic) couple whose marriage doesn't make it, is that rare thing, a smart, serious American relationship movie. It's not going to get much exposure, and critics have been too hard on it, but they've also acknowledged that it's something quite special: a film about couples life that doesn't go for laughs but for accuracy, and that gives you as much to think about as an intelligent play. It's sad if that doesn't work for the American movie audience, as is implied by the trade-oriented critics saying The History Boys doesn't work on film. What's wrong with transferring a smart play to film, if it's more than okay to transfer a dumb novel? But this isn't a transfer. It's the direct product of the keen observations of Jeff Lipsky, a leading indie film producer, who both wrote and directed. Earlier this year we saw Trust the Man, a relationship movie made by Julianne Moore's husband Bart Freundlich. That was glossier and smoother, it had bigger names in it and it was very watchable, but as a study of relationship and marriage it wasn't half as thought-provoking as the sometimes painfully real Flannel Pajamas, and it was ruined by a flashy, preposterous ending, while Lipsky's ending is subtle and touching.Criticisms have been heaped upon Lipsky's film. Reviewers have said it's overwritten, too talky, has too many themes and characters to keep track of; that the latter part doesn't have enough dramatic momentum; that the Montana homestead of the wife's family looks too East Coast and too perfect while the husband's condo is too cold and empty; that the movie has no distinctive look. Maybe. And maybe not. I'm not sure those requirements would be held as necessary or seen as quite so damning in the French or Swedish films this resembles. But the critics have dwelt so much on what they see as flaws that they've doomed the film to a low critical rating – perhaps with the exception of Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, who calls it a "masterpiece" and the "finest relationship film of the year." He may be right on the latter count.Let's look for a minute at the pluses. To start with, Stuart Sawyer (Justin Kirk) and Nicole Reilly, (Julianne Nicholson ), the two main characters, who're seen from every angle (including frontally nude) feel authentic in every scene. Whether they're in or out of sync in their relationship, they play together equally well. Dialogue and action have a Seventies-style frankness: we're much closer to John Cassavetes and Ingmar Bergman than to Nora Epron or Woody Allen. Glib romantic comedy has been traded in for keen psychological and moral observation. And it's a welcome change.The successive scenes each examine the couple's dynamic from another angle. When Stuart goes home to Montana with Nicole, it's a sequence without jokey clashes à la last year's The Family Stone. Stuart gets to know some people a little bit and some not at all, just as in real life. He doesn't get the full force of Nicole's mother's honesty and disapproval till Nicole has a miscarriage late in the film (Rebecca Schull is terrific in the scene). Before that, the wedding is finely handled, with speeches by Nicole's best friend Tess (Chelsea Altman) and Stuart's brilliant, suicidal brother Jordan (Jamie Harrold) that feel completely right.Lipsky doesn't set up the dissolution of the marriage obviously. This is a movie about relationships that may make you do some personal soul-searching, even as you go back over the sequences of scenes in your mind. You're not sure at first why the marriage fails. You don't know the moment when it happens. But you know what it's about: Nicole's become mopey and sad, and Stuart's too selfish. While pledging support for her catering business with his life savings, he not only makes her wait two years to have a baby, and then wants to stall after that; he doesn't even want to let her have a dog. As he admits to his father, Stuart was probably too self-centered to succeed in a marriage from the start. Nonetheless obviously Stuart charms us more, as we saw him charm Nicole on their first date; but his flaws were present from the first, masked by the charm. His job as a promoter consists, he frankly states, of inventing complete lies about plays, and Nicole eventually realizes he's a talker, not a listener. He really is selfish, and though he keeps saying over and over he loves Nicole, you always have doubts. She is far more honest, but perhaps was too fragile to judge him carefully. Both have screwed up families, his Jewish, divorced, and including the nutty brother; hers Catholic and alcoholic.As the movie unfolds over its two hours, you often get a chance to think about the contrast between the successive stages of first date, courtship, lustful sex, romance, marriage, separate masturbation, and final estrangement. Tellingly, both isolation (Stuart, perhaps surprisingly for a Broadway promoter, has few friends or business-related social life) and too much closeness (he has trouble handling Nicole's big family) are equally hard for the couple to handle. You gradually realize they didn't have what it takes to make the transition from romance into family life, and that, in short, they weren't ever a good match. The pathway to this realization is an interesting one.