Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

MBunge What the hell did I just watch? Seriously, what the hell did I just watch? I'm trying to come up with a way to describe this movie and the only thing I've got is…what the hell did I just watch?Phil and Anna (David Aaron Baker and Mary McCormack) are a New York City couple living inside a meat locker of a marriage. They barely even acknowledge each other's presence and as the movie begins, we find out that Phil and Anna are cheating on each other. Anna tells her incompetent therapist (Stockard Channing) that she's seeing another man and Phil tells his indestructible a-hole of a best friend (Campbell Scott) that he's seeing another woman. Anna also spills her guts about her lifeless union to her high strung brother with Tourette 's syndrome (Rob Morrow). An inexplicably French private investigator (Peter Gallagher) gets involved, there's a scene in a night club with a punk rock band that has a bald, fat lead singer in a neck brace and a diaper, Mary McCormack does NOT get naked and the secret of Phil and Anna's adulterous relationships turns out to defy both explanation and understanding.A lot of films have twists and I shy away from spoiling them in these reviews unless the movie is so gosh awful I feel it's necessary to remove any possible temptation to watch it. Other Voices is bewildering instead of bad, but I couldn't spoil the twist in this story even if I wanted to. That's because if I told you exactly what the twist was, you wouldn't believe me. I mean, I've seen a lot of nonsensical plot developments but this one pretty much takes the cake. The reveal of this secret is like mashing up South Park with The Empire Strikes Back and finding out that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's hermaphrodite mother.This movie isn't without redeeming qualities. Jason Campbell is fun to watch as Phil's unrelenting jerkwad of a best friend. He masterfully portrays the sort of foul-mouthed, douchebag that you can't imagine was ever anything but the joyfully horrible creature that he is right now. He's like Dan Fielding from Night Court after smoking a big bag of meth. People like that are unbearable in real life but are a lot of fun to watch from a distance in fiction. Rob Morrow also does a nice job as Anna's brother, making all of his involuntary starts and ticks seem like completely natural parts of the character. I also found Peter Gallagher doing a mediocre French accent pretty amusing for some reason.That's about it for the positives. David Aaron Baker spends 90% of the film with the same pained expression on his face. Stockard Channing seems more like someone who needs therapy than an actress playing a therapist. There's an out-of-left-field Hitchcock homage. Gallagher spends an inordinate amount of screen time wearing the Gortex hat from that Seinfeld episode. And it appears as though an early draft of the screenplay had some sort of subplot involving a protest against urban redevelopment, but about 98% of it was apparently cut out of the final script.Other Voices almost defies classification. What it reminds me of is watching a foreign film and getting lost in the different emotional tones and social references of an alien culture. Maybe this is an accurate picture of how people live in New York City. Maybe the whole thing is just an extended brain fart from writer/director Dan McCormack. I don't know which it is, only that you shouldn't waste your time on this film.

amk2f I have seen this movie occasionally on a cable channel & immediately ordered a copy on DVD. I have to highlight, that "Other Voices" is a very deep movie with several layers of understanding enclosed in little details. The movie is not just "weird" or simply "funny", it's not only about marriage troubles & self-absorption and loneliness of people. It's also about the unnaturalness of the living environment in a huge megalopolis, the senselessness of corporate jobs, the inevitability of social collapse to mention a few. Every single character in the movie, and unfortunately this is a very realistic part of it, is a lonely, unhappy and emotionally crippled person. The whole atmosphere, the inner energy of the film is very pressing. I would say, "Other Voices" is even more of current interest than it was back in 2000. Though the film is very intriguing, easy to watch & at times absolutely hilarious - it is at the same time very sad. It demands digging deeper into things, paying attention to the dialogs and little details, which at times turn out to be very profound. Just like this very impressive part, when John (Campbell Scott) tries to get in the nightclub in order to grab some beer there and the bouncer tells him he's not on the list, to which John replies something like that he's got "Henry f***ing Kissinger waiting in the car. Are you telling me Kissinger is not on the list?" In the meantime the satanically looking band in the club is playing a rather creepy heavy metal song with the following refrain "Insect instead of Jesus". This scene is very important in the movie, which brings up the problems of meaningless corporatism, death of family, break down of social communications, street riots, etc.

deankeaton Can't understand why this didn't really get picked up after Sundance. Very good Hitchcockian story with solid acting, writing, etc. I'm surprised this doesn't have a cult following I'm aware of. Definitely recommended.

T40T This was one of the two or three movies I really liked at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival (another being the very funny "The Tao of Steve").I actually can't remember that much about the plot, etc, but there were a few extremely clever, fabulous things that I haven't forgotten.I can't really describe them effectively, because they just have to be seen to have the right effect.One example:There's a scene in which Jeff (Rob Morrow) takes John (Campbell Scott) and out to lunch at the latest hot restaurant in New York.This is no ordinary restaurant.It is an outdoor restaurant located on the tiny sliver of land between 5th and 23rd in New York right in front of the great Flat Iron Building.It's an incredibly busy intersection.The restaurant is nothing more than white linen-covered tables and velvet ropes which make up the "walls."While diners eat gourmet food and try to have intimate conversations, they have to scream at each other because their voices are constantly drowned out by passing loud cars and buses.When one of the characters decides to leave, he just raises his hand while sitting at the table and flags down a cab.This is such an outlandish, wonderful concept, and the scene really encapsulates the New York mindset (at least before September 11, 2001).New York is (maybe still) so consumed with the newest and the hippest and everyone wants to jump on the latest thing before anyone else, leading to more and more outlandish "it" places and things.I have no idea how the makers of this small film ever got permission to pull this stunt off.Just think of the imagination needed to come up with this idea, and to actually be able to make it happen, cheaply and without digital gimmickry, no less.This is just a few minutes of the movie, but the imagination behind this scene permeates much of the rest of the film as well.There's another scene which involves a helicopter on the roof of a skyscraper that's interesting, too.What's even greater about these moments is that they are presented completely matter-of-factly.Another movie or director with set pieces like that, and I can't think of many, might have a "aren't we clever?" way about them.Not this one.Some other scenes made me laugh at out loud, which is something maybe I shouldn't be proud to admit.The Jeff character has Tourette's Syndrome, and maybe I should feel embarrassed that some of his outbursts cracked me up.I can't imagine how difficult it would be to actually have this problem, not knowing when and if you might next loose control and what you'd do could be devastating.However, I might be able to justify my laughter in this case.If Jeff didn't have Tourette's he would probably still be a not so pleasant guy. It may also be possible to argue that he is at least partially responsible for his difficulties, since he's not always responsibly taking his medication.Also, it is just a movie, so you are given some permission to laugh inappropriately on occasion. Our dormant sophomoric selves feel more comfortable making themselves known, and some of the laughter comes from knowing we probably shouldn't be laughing at all. For a perfect example, think of much of "There's Something About Mary."Maybe if you're laughing at an actor in a movie, and not in real life at someone who actually has impairment, it might not be the worst thing in the world.