Ear, I mean here, we have another Greg KinnEAR movie. He employed the smart strategy of having longer hair to hide his frickin’ flying Dumbo ears. Anywho, he is a very good actor (even though he does have hideously huge EARS), and does a great job in this one. The problem here was the ridiculously improbable plot combined with a very unlikable character. The cast was fairly simple in this movie, KinnEAR played Phil, a divorced and depressed dentist. Bradley Whitford played Michael, a highly successful patient that Phil became obsessed with. Emily Mortimer played Alicia, Michael’s wife. Hey, did I mention Greg KinnEAR’s elephantine EARS??
The movie started with Phil standing on the Brooklyn bridge and imagining jumping off to commit suicide (sadly, he does not). Ever notice how when someone jumps or falls into the East river (or any river for that matter), it is magically as crystal clear as a swimming pool? What’s up with that? Have you ever seen any river in a US city that clear? Nope!
Briefly summing up the plot, Phil met Michael at his office, and then incredibly, after a very short conversation, Phil became obsessed with Michael to the point of stalking. Whilst following him via car, Michael pulled over in a forest and walked in. Phil followed, only to find Michael swinging from a tree branch, having committed suicide by hanging himself. Instead of dropping said obsession, Phil became even more determined to find out why someone with seemingly the perfect life would take his own.
A few other key plot points, during their brief discussion, Michael urged Phil to take his daughter to Greece, as Michael had spent some of his youth their with his friend Spiros. Michael also wrote a book about So-crates, and they quoted him several times in the movie. So when Alicia found Phil passed out on Michael’s grave, and was about to call the police, Phil idiotically blurted out (in a non-Greek accent I must add) that he was Michael’s friend Spiros from Greece. For some bizarre reason, Alicia actually believed this silly crock of shit. What in the hail?
Would anyone believe Phil was Greek? His brother looked more Greek than him. Didn’t Alicia notice when she first met him that he didn’t have a hokey Greek accent? Does anyone believe Greeks would let him get away with that dopey dance at the Greek restaurant? Or the college professor who noticed he couldn’t really speak Greek? And the father who met him decades ago?? Come on, man… ridiculous!
The only part of this movie that was kind of funny was when Phil (as Spiros) convinced Alicia that he could complete the remodeling of her bathroom that Michael had started. Knowing nothing about any of it, Phil used YouTube “how to” videos to complete the job, which turned out, incredibly once again, at least cosmetically beautiful. Only when it fell apart did Alicia finally realize she had been duped.
To summarize, the character “Phil” was unbelievable and incredibly annoying. I found myself rooting throughout the movie that his obvious fraud would be discovered to end our misery. I really hoped Phil would have leapt off the Brooklyn Bridge after 45 minutes of this nonsense. Sadly, it didn’t happen.
A better name for this movie would be “Phil needs a serious intervention by Dr. Phil” Three flying Dumbo KinnEARS out of nine.