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Simple Men (1992) More at IMDbPro »

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22 comments in total

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Philosophical suburban grotesque, 3 October 1999
Author: Phil-249 from Marly, Switzerland

There's Hollywood, there's Dogma... and there's Hal Hartley. The absurd storyline of "Simple Men" reminded me of Pedro Almodóvar, it's visual impact made me think of Hitchcock's suburban nightmares like "Shadow of a doubt" or "The trouble with Harry". It's either a deeply philosophical movie which raises many questions (without providing the answers), or some sort of grotesque (Elina Lowensohn's performance!), depending on how you look at it. "Simple men" is one of those movies which leave you with the impression that there was more than met the eye, and maybe there was. Above all, it's an unusual, tranquil and highly entertaining film with very likeable characters.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Reminds me of a Sam Shepard play..., 9 October 1999
Author: Richard Kenney (dickles@mediaone.net) from Lowell, Mass

On first viewing, I could have sworn this was a Sam Shepard play. It has the short lilting dialogue for much of the film and sounds as though it were written for the stage. It is directed very much in that fashion and is a fascinating, captivating set of performances...understated and full of deeper meanings that don't shout at you in the more typical "Hollywood" tradition!

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Sublime and heartfelt, 14 February 2003
Author: ellkew from London

This is a beautifully made film that has dialogue that literally sparkles and puts 90% of Hollywood scripts to shame though that is admittedly not too difficult. I adore Hartley's use of language and the way he lets the actors perform in front of his camera. The post-drinking scene where they dance to Sonic Youth's Kool Thing is inspired cinema, also the scene where Donovan lists his decent bands 'the old Who'. The best scene is at the end though. I find it incredibly moving each time that this man who has constantly denied his feelings and fought his past is drawn to rest his head gently on the breast of the woman he has grown to love. Though surrounded by police the camera focuses only on his face as we hear the words 'Don't move' off-camera. Why would he move when he has finally found where he belongs? Immaculate framing, marvellous pace and a genuinely affecting story all combine to make this my second favourite Hartley film after 'Amateur' which is untouchable as far as I am concerned.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A Simple Joy, 4 November 2000
Author: PaulLondon from United Kingdom

Hartley has here created a near masterpiece; a wonderful, autumnally atmospheric and deeply human film. The usual quirks are there (the cyclical dialogues, the silences) but it is imbued with a warmth and love that makes the film unmissable. The fragile nature of relationships comes under the directors scrutiny as two brothers spend a couple of days in Long Island. The all night drinking scene complete with a dance routine to Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing" captures that dusk to dawn and too much Jack Daniels feel as well as any film I have ever seen. But, it is the closing scene which clinches it, a heart stoppingly romantic yet equally depressing end which asserts that through the pains of life, through the "trouble and desire" there is always a belief in other people that can keep us going. Life affirming (without being a saccharine "feel good" movie) and truly wonderful

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
I didn't want it to end., 11 June 2003

Author: Curtis G. from Surf City, USA

"Trust" was so different from anything I'd ever seen that it just knocked me out--the dialog, the meter, the slightly-affected hyper-reality of the performances. "Simple Men" showcased a refinement of writer/director Hal Hartley's style, and I found myself watching rapt, not wanting it to end, ever. Untouched, unblemished, unstained by Hollywood, Hal Hartley makes his own movies his own way. He takes life's "little problems"--the ones that big Hollywood movies only mention in passing as a cinematic trick to achieve emotional buy-in--and examines them in exquisite detail. Now when is the DVD release!?

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Small-time masterpiece, 27 October 2000

Author: kitticat-2 from Berkeley, CA

Like Mr. Hartley's other movies, this film manages to balance humor, romance, drama, emotion, and action. It has a vaguely surreal air to it, wherein the events are plausible, but could only happen on those strange, unsettled days of the year when the sky can't decide whether to rain or not. There is also a bit of camp mixed in.

Also like his other films, Simple Men is quite idealistic, yet without being sappy or 'feel-good' in a cheap or simplistic way. This is a subtle movie, and I found I had to watch it a second and third time before I truly appreciated it. It's hard to compare it to anything else except Hartley's other movies, especially the excellent Henry Fool. I recommend it highly.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
That person is sooo wrong, 21 January 1999
Author: asia-3 from nyc

This movie is amazing. In a lot of ways it is an extremely painful movie to watch, watching people create their own destruction, watching the action play out a certain inevitability. But it's different also from a lot of stories, in that this kind of arc does not just continue on to its logical conclusion. The characters do not simply hurtle forth, but are always capable of thinking, changing. Really, really good.

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Oh the characters!, 30 March 2006
Author: Atavisten from Tellus

What would Hal Hartley's movies be without the eccentric characters? Here is the ex-baseball player hiding in a boat quoting Proudhon to a religiously following Romanian epilectic girl less than half his age that definitely has her own way of dancing to Sonic Youth. Referencing here and there, many lost on me I guess, but the way everything is downplayed makes it so funny at times.

Hal Hartly is so good in casting. I think I liked every actor and actress he has chosen. Here, Elina Lövensohn shines, Karen Sillas is so natural and Robert John Burke is highly dramatic, like he was as the monster in 'No Such Thing'. The rest is seriously deadpan, which is a good thing.

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Free from all the emotions, 27 June 2009

Author: Toroslu from Turkey

The biggest problem of the movie is that the movie has no effect on audiences at all and the second main problem is the reactions of the characters that is extremely soulless. The movie is not humorous at all except the famous dance scene and the guy who helps Kate. This short part is the only interesting part and the guy is the only funny character of the movie, all the other characters are too straight face, too emotionless, so they react against almost nothing. This cannot be explained by nihilism or Godard's 'anti-cinema' approach. By the way, Simple Men is not a road movie, despite the main story is that two brothers leave the city to find their father, even if the idea is so cliché, it sounds engrossing, but the film is not at all. In the rest of the film, there is a emptiness feeling, in other words, it is like all the characters are free from all the feelings, so if you expect any kind of dramatic or stunning material, you disappoint seriously. The movie has some good observations about women men relationships, the cinematography is well, a plain style, but owing to the problems I have mentioned above, the film suffers from an impressive cinema experience. The director puts up a solid wall between the movie and audiences, I don't mean catharsis or I don't mean empathy and it makes the movie distasteful and soulless. Some people complain about acting in the movie, but acting was not weak, there is no problem with acting. It was plausible, the thing makes them think like that is probably the reactions of the characters, but this is not because the actors and actresses are bad, it is because what the director likes. The film is not predictable, but does not include any twist or surprise.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Ponderous and empty play-like film... Er, I mean, its a Hal Hartley!, 10 February 2008

Author: Ben_Cheshire from Oz

Imagine a Hartley film with good acting; these people just make his writing sound pretentious, but I'm sure it could sound merely clever in the mouths of better actors.

One thing I'll tell you about this movie is its IMDb page is misleading in several ways. The genre listing "comedy," the title and the plot point of two lads betting about making a girl fall in love with them, might indicate you're in for a fairly lightweight, fun movie; perhaps even a teen-movie. But this is no She's All That; its a talk-heavy script and the actors perform it in a ponderous but stagey manner; there's no sense that this is anything but a staged reading of a Hal Hartley script.

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