How do you define happiness? We are taken on a tale of a search for happiness through multiple characters who all reside in New York City in Gary King’s debut film titled New York Lately.
Over the years I’ve seen numerous films like this and I’ve come to realize that the best of them come from directors who have a specific theme/idea to convey in the end that they do via the use of the multiple character arcs. However, I felt like Mr. King had no real reason to show us all these different characters, and there were a lot, other than to pad an already thin story
I think one of the main problems with the movie is that the director tries too hard to make it seem all too coincidental that characters would meet up and also at some points throughout the movie it wasn’t exactly clear what a character did in order to gain their goal in the end. One such instance was when Veronica Darling [Jenn Dees] was in her audition and was asked instead of delivering her prepared monologue the director asked her to perform a kissing scene with him or she wouldn’t get the part and then right after what seems like she succumbed to the pressures of the industry and fraternized with the director in order to get the part. She then talks with her best friend, Truly Hanssen [Susan Cagle], and tells her that she hit the director when he made this request. In the very next scene with her we see her being set up for the role on set, so I ask did she kiss or didn’t she kiss the guy? I believe it’s obvious that she kissed the director but if she is willing to lie to her own friend about it then what’s the point? What would Truly ask when Veronica is off at shoots all day and night? ‘How did you get the part after you attacked the man in your audition?’ That just felt stupid to me and I felt like that Truly wouldn’t have judged her for performing the kiss with the director in the audition, if that is what she did.
Another problem I had with this movie is the horrible acting. I think out of all of the actors, the only one that I thought did a good job with her role is Susan Cagle. She did well to play the role of the best friend for Veronica, the indie aspiring songwriter for us, and the cute and interested lady for Jared Ishii [Jared Asato]. Even though the role seemed like a natural one at no point was I thinking that she was overdoing or forcing it. While on the other hand some characters like Ringo [John Weisenburger], Mark [Mark DiConzo] and Jared were all just too much. Ringo couldn’t stop being the annoying guy who talks about getting all the ladies and in the end being the only one who pays for it, Mark’s obsession with his most recent ex-girlfriend made me almost want to shut off the movie at times and Jared’s complete lack of a spine made me want to throw a remote into my television.
The direction and camera work for this movie however I think was well done. I liked most of the editing and a lot of the work, especially during some of the conversationally scenes between all the guys or just all the girls where Mr. King would cut the video out of order but the audio would play in sequence and even though the audio didn’t match the video it added a certain style to the movie which was a nice feel and kept the conversations from being a complete and utter bore. I also loved how in the scenes with Mark how he would always have Mark imagining his girlfriend in the place of each of the women he speaks to, and even though the obsession annoyed me, the way that Mr. King showed me this dramatic obsession was a great tool.
In the end I think this is a boring used story with badly written characters but showed some potential from this first time director and writer. I hope that his next project will take all that he has learned from this and improved on it as a writer more than a director.
IMDB says 10/10
Rotten Tomatoes says N/A
I say 4.0/10