With or Without You

With two of Britain's most reliable actors playing the leads, and a superb director of films like Jude and Wonderland, With Or Without would seem to have everything going for it. But watching the movie one quickly sinks into despair. This is a truly bland movie, with little to hold ones attention. The cast have little to do except go through the motions, the soapy proceedings are hard to believe in and don't really demand the effort. As for the actual plotting, it is unbelieveably cliched and predictable. The ending attempts to wrap things up in a novel and optimistic way and instead seems like a cinematic version of musical chairs as the time runs out and every character needs to find a place quickly. Also for a film whcih features sex as such an integral part of the plotting, it seems to have a very awkward attitude to it. The sex scenes are not particularly funny when they are meant to be, and certainly not erotic. Quite what Winterbottom saw in this and how he managed to make it so blandly is difficult to fathom. Saying it looks like a tv movie is unfair on tv movies: this is an extended episode of a fairly lazy soap opera and a crushing disappointment.