GALLERY
Director: Marc Klein
Producers: Deborah Del Prete, Gigi Pritzker, and Darryl Taja
Screenplay: Marc Klein
Adapted from the short stories "My Old Man"
and "The worst Thing a Suburban Girl
Could Imagine", by Melissa Bank
Co-starring: Alec Baldwin, Peter Scolari, Jill Eikenberry
US Release Date: 27 April 2007
Length: 96 minutes
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Interesting Character Scale (Helen Shivers=0 Buffy Summers=10}: nine
Best scene for Gellar: When they meet.
Brett Eisenberg is an assistant editor for a New York publishing company who is not doing all that well until she meets and gets involved with prominent New York writer Archie Knox, an alcoholic, diabetic, and charming raconteur.
Imagine 1970 Barbara Streisand and 1985 Michael Caine directed by 1987 Woody Allen. The film is visually impressive (I really liked Brett's apartment and the less than accidental backgrounds in some of the open air shots), and it is the sort of thing Gellar needs to do more often (comedy). Didn't much like the bit about her dad dying. Thought it injected pop psychology into an otherwise interesting story. Note that in The Return (see review on this site) the father is pivotal to the story, and in Buffy, the father is absent except for one flashback episode in Season Six where Buffy retreats from reality to her childhood.
Read
Marc Klein's article for The Huffington Post about adapting the story and directing this film.
Gellar's shower scene is interesting because it is the most revealing of the three shower scenes she has done on film. (The other two are in POSSESSION and THE GRUDGE.) Because of that, and because of the fact that she used a body double for the picture on her porn tape in SOUTHLAND TALES, I suspected that she might have used a double for this scene, but I can find no indication of this.
Released in Germany as "Upper East Side Love". Jill Eikenberry (Marlene Eisenberg) was Ann Kelsey in LA LAW. Vanessa Branch (Faye Faulkner) was the adult Naomi Wildman in ST VOYAGER. Vanessa Branch (Faye Faulkner) has been the Orbit Gum girl since 2002. "Dirty Mouth? Clean it up with Orbit gum!"
The soundtrack is apparently not available on CD or by download, but one of the songs that would be on it if it were is "Speeding Cars" by Imogen Heap. Heap used to be half of Frou Frou (the other half was Guy Sigsworth). They broke up in 2003, but have suggested they might someday work together again.
