Elephant Juice

source: Elephant Juice

Elephant Juice comes from the pen of Amy Jenkins, creator of television series This Life, and while it isn't good, it's not all-bad. It is a longstanding cliché that British television writers can't write for the big screen and think small. Jenkins, unfortunately, does nothing to refute this. There are even pointless headings for different sections of the film, like it has been split into seven episodes. While there are lots of interesting locations, it cannot disguise the fact that it's still just people talking. The dialogue might be very good, but there's rarely anything important at stake. This is less due to the poor plotting than the poor characterisation. And that in turn is due to Jenkins decision to have eight major characters. You simply can't have that many in a movie as there isn't as much time to find out about them as there is in a television series. There are two characters who are almost adequately drawn but the motivations for the others is barely there - if at all. There is an incident in the last act that is a surprise but not in a good way. There is no reason given for the character to do what they did, so rather than being moved we simply don't care. Two of the characters lose partners they cared about and react as if they'd lost a five-pound note. While it seemed bizarre and confusing at the time, in retrospect it was just so those characters could get together at the end with fewer hassles. It's not a feel good ending if everything that enabled it is totally unbelievable. To be honest I preferred all the other This Life writers to Amy Jenkins but she does know how to write and there's the makings of a good film here as she clearly knows her world but it needed another couple of drafts at least. The irony is the script was rushed into production before it was ready to cash in on the This Life success but because it was rushed both the co-investors, Miramax and Film Four, refused to distribute it. In fact Miramax subsequently closed down their UK subsidiary that produced this due to "creative differences". This won't be in theatres for long but make up your own mind about it when it's on free television, where it belongs.

There`s nothing heavy about this film, its a nice easy going film about relationships in the real world and how cheating on each other has become a part of life, but in this case it also allows people who have become the greatest of friends to let their feelings go and see what there looking for is really right in front of them. So many films have been made with much larger budgets but don`t have the realistic feelings that are here. You will not regret watching it and may well be able to relate real life with this film.

The concept was good (relationships amongst 20-30 year olds in London), the script posed some good questions (`How do you choose your friends?'; `Can you tell someone you love them?'), and the settings were a refreshing view of a side of London that most of us don't see. There were flashes of interesting dialogue that had me waiting to see if eventually something worthwhile might happen. It didn't. What disappointed was that none of the good questions asked were answered (some weren't even addressed) and the not one of the characters was believable or likable. If that wasn't bad enough, the music was undoubtedly the worst I have ever heard. Intrusive, jarring, inappropriate, in poor taste and masked a good 30% of what may have been interesting dialogue. What a waste of a good concept and viewer's time

There are so many things wrong with this film: SPOILER ALERT 1. Characters with no depth whatsoever. 2. Appalling dialogue - Jenkins obviously had no idea what her characters could say that might be interesting/amusing/moving, so she just has them staring into space or sitting there crying. 3. Scenes that go nowhere and seem to exist for no reason, such as the guy seeing his boyfriend's face on advertising hoardings in one scene, and this never being mentioned again, or the "I hate your shoes" scene which is just dreadful, but could have been funny, or the "visiting the prostitute" scene in which betrayed woman visits prostitute and has nothing to say, yawn yawn yawn (see also no. 1 above). 4. Total confusion: why does our "hero" find out from his mate that the american woman has run off? How does HE know? 5. Terrible attempts at being "clever" - the scene in the hospital in which the guy talks about cars. Oh dear. Or how about the "how do you like your coffee?" scene or the bit on the tube where she pretends to be French? Yikes. 6. Cliches: man falls out of boat into water. Great, thanks for that. Man rushing to hospital and we're not sure who's been hurt/committed suicide. How many times have we seen that? 7. Dialogue that has no relevance to anything else in the film: guy's comment about one character being homophobic, for example. 8. That scene in the dance class! Awful in the extreme. And then, to make it even worse, the two of them are seen "dancing" home in the street - yeah, haven't we all done that in our time? No, it only ever happens in bad films. 9. Flash photo of cast at start - to give the film a sort of "Big Chill" pseudo-significance. Embarrassing. 10. Desperate use of music to make us think a scene has some kind of emotional resonance, when only the soundtrack has... 11. The film-makers' obvious belief that the no member of the audience has ever seen a film before and will just fall for this half-baked contrivance and plotless waffle. 12. The title - which is slipped in right at the end and has no relation to anything that has gone before. Yes, this is not necessarily a problem, but somehow, in this film, it is.

What were they thinking of? I assume they thought, oh she's in the Sunday papers, she must be good. It's not true of mail order trousers and it isn't true about film makers either. People say that what's wrong with British filmmakers is that they shoot the first draft. This time they seem to have shot the first fart.

I'll make this short and sweet. You will not like, empathise, root for or understand any of the characters in this pointless little London-based drama. They have the combined depth of a paddling pool. It's produced by the team who made 'This Life' for the BBC -- I never saw that show, but if it's anything like Elephant Juice... I'm glad I missed it. Avoid.

source: Elephant Juice

This is a relationship movie set in London, involving a group of twenty somethings. There is the obligatory 'gay' couple, the philanderer with the stunning wife, the shy boy etc. Although, this is not a bad film, in the current crop of 'Brit Flicks' it makes a change to see something other than a gangster movie. That said, however, this film does not linger too long in the mind. The performances from an international cast is passable but this is a curious point in the story, why have we got an international cast for a very British film? This is one that will not doubt be well received when it comes to TV.

: Elephant Juice is a collaboration between the writer\creator and the director of This Life. Elephant Juice is sometimes described as a cinematic version of This Life, this is accurate. Is This Life one of the best shows of the 90s? ... erm quite possibly, but the standard was set incredibly high. You had The Simpsons hit their peak, Frasier and The Sopranos in the US. In the UK you could pull any sitcom name out of a hat and it would probably be great or at least worth watching: Coupling, Red Dwarf, reruns of peak Blackadder, Bottom, Drop The Dead Donkey. In terms of drama: The Lakes, Dennis Potter dramas like Jake's Progress and Karaoke, House Of Cards, Hillsborough, Queer As Folk. And it's still up there. The film is a straight forward romantic drama (with a few bits of comedy) about 20 and 30-somethings living in London. Also like This Life they are seemingly middle class. If it wasn't for This Life +10, the 10 year follow-up to This Life, this could almost be a continuation of the characters. It even has Daniela Nardini from This Life playing a much less intense role, but also a lesser character. To be Honest all the characters are undeveloped apart from Kimberly Williams' barista single mother character. I can emphasise that it must have been a mammoth task writing so many characters and with a runtime of less than 90 minutes. There's a few shocks here and there, but nothing surprising in terms of plot. Honestly I'm not doubting the ability of those involved and there's some fine acting, but nobody really gets a chance to show off their acting chops, the usually brilliant Mark Strong appears on screen for all of five minutes for example. The film doesn't quite feel cinematic apart from being shot on film (wasn't This Life shot on video?) and some licensed music including brilliant punk band Wire. The DVD has a nice print and is rated 18 in the UK, possibly due to cocaine use and a few sex scenes. All in all it's a pretty good romantic drama, but it never excels itself and sort of has a TV movie feel to it.