My Sassy Girl

Starring: Jesse Bradford, Elisha Cuthbert, Austin Bassis, Chris Sarandon, Jay Patterson
Directed by: Yann Samuell
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
2008

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A Midwestern guy (Jesse Bradford) starts dating a beautiful, spontaneous New Yorker (Elisha Cuthbert)- the only problem is that all evidence points to her being completely insane.

Review:

Tim: One of the joys of committing yourself to watching as many movies as you possibly can is that you find yourself watching films you never expected to see. My Sassy Girl is the remake of a Korean film (that by all accounts is quite good), and it only ended up as a DVD release in the United States. So, normally, I would never have spent time with this film. That is one of the joys of letting others choose movies. Now, I've purposely used "joy" twice in this paragraph in an ironic way, because this film was almost completely joyless. It's a rushed, haphazard attempt to take something good and Americanize it. Unfortunately, a massive amount must have been lost in translation, because this is a forgettable, borderline awful movie.

A good deal of the blame goes to director Yann Samuell. This was his second film, and it shows. A director is responsible for creating the world, the characters who inhabit it, and the feeling and tone of everything we see on screen. Samuell gave a lackluster effort here. It felt like even this movie (which wasn't especially large) was too big for him to handle. He never shows any control or mastery over the content. This is a film that had a thousand opportunities to be better, but Samuell doesn't capitalize on any of them.

I had a hard time even watching this movie. The flow was off, and I struggled to stay interested and engaged in it. It felt choppy, which made the movie difficult to watch. I simply had no fun watching this film, and I did not enjoy the experience. I felt confused throughout much of the movie- what was the film suggesting I feel? Was I supposed to like these characters? Hate them? Be completely ambivalent about them? The movie did not make any kind of connection with me, so whatever point it was trying to get across was lost.

I guess I sort of liked Jesse Bradford. He played this genuine, Midwestern guy (which was easy to identify with, because I'm the same). However, his character was far too one-dimensional. I never felt comfortable with him, or that there was anything below the surface. Elisha Cuthbert was even harder to pin down. I spent most of the movie actively disliking her. She seemed borderline psychotic, and there was nothing cute or funny about the things she did. She came across as a horribly selfish, awful person. I wanted nothing to do with her. What was inexplicable is how hard Bradford's character fell for her. Hey, I get it, we've all dated people we knew we shouldn't. However, what Bradford suffers through here is beyond any logic or reason. It felt like the situation was taken to an unnecessary extreme. As the movie goes on, it starts to hint that there's something else going on here, and that when it's revealed, it will all make sense. That kept me going for quite a while.

Unfortunately, when we find out the truth, it doesn't make anything better. I think the movie hoped that the explanation would cause us to forgive Cuthbert's character for her crazy actions. I did not. Despite her personal troubles, there's no good reason for purposefully sabotaging someone's life, or forcing them to jump through hoops to please you without any explanation at all. Her character was incredibly selfish and I disliked her, even at the end. The movie's twist at the end just comes across as forced and insufficient.

Although I had to peer deep down and pull off multiple layers of awfulness, I think there might have been something at the heart of this movie. It's nearly impossible to see here, but I get why someone wanted to remake the original Korean film. I haven't seen it yet, but I noticed echoes of the original story. I bet that film is actually quite good and powerful. Unfortunately, this remake is a total bust. My Sassy Girl has a few decent moments, and I do appreciate Bradford and Cuthbert putting effort into their roles. Unfortunately, everything around them was ineffective. This is a movie I really did not enjoy watching, and I can assure you, I will never, ever watch again.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 4.5



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