Alexandra's Project (2003)

Alexandra's Project is the January selection in The Film Movement Series. Steve (Gary Sweet) is a middle-management office worker happily going through the motions of family life as husband to wife Alexandra (Helen Buday) and father to their two children. Today is Steves birthday, and things cant seem to get better. After receiving a much awaited promotion, Steve leaves work upbeat and heads home to his suburban townhouse in anticipation of a surprise party he suspects Alexandra has organized. A video tape marked "Play Me" will change his life. Official Selection at the Berlin, Toronto, Telluride, Edinburgh Film Festivals, Alexandra's Projected was directed by Rolfe de Heer (Bad Boy Bubby, Dance Me to My Song). The film is darkly wonderful - a movie that will leave few men unrattled and many women vicariously satisfied, according to the Toronto Star. Product Description

outstanding film

Wow! This movie literally had me on the edge of my seat. The less you know about this one the better but I heartily recommend it if you don't mind your films gripping and harrowing that is.

Also, what a message to men, I was squirming.

A terrific pscyolocial thriller or plain old horror, personally this was more frightening to me than any Jason or Freddy film I've seen! October 7, 2007

big time revenge

Steve's birthday started well enough. While still in bed his kids gave him hugs and high fives. At work his colleagues had a cake with candles and his boss gave him a promotion. And his wife Alexandra promised him a surprise in the evening. Some surprise. The film opens with a camera panning through the winding road of a sterile suburb, and soft, discordant music. The very first sentence of the film belongs to Alexandra as she is alone in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror: "I'm so sorry, Steve. . . NO! I'm not sorry! No one should ever be sorry to stand up for their own self!"The rest of the film then takes place in the living room as Steve watches the "surprise" birthday tape that Alexandra made before she left him. Her powerfully manipulative monologue to Steve takes him on a roller coaster of emotions straight to hell: humor, disbelief, regret, sadness, pity, anger, rage, and finally despair. "You didn't marry me, Steve," she tells him, "you married my body." And so she makes it clear just how a marriage devoid of affection, intimacy, and mutual respect had made her feel. This film is hard to watch because it is without nuance. Alexandra is one deeply angry and cruel woman, but if what she says about Steve is true you empathize with her anyway. March 30, 2007

Disturbing

Many others have already reviewed the plot, so I will stay away from that. I just saw it at our the Cleveland International Film Festival. The director / writer was in attendance for a Q&A after the film.

De Heer claimed that he strived for balance in the two characters when making the film. He also admitted that most people who see the film do not see much balance. He also said that feminist groups were the main advocates for the film.

After watching I came to two conclusions on his intentions.
1. The only balance that I saw is that in the beginning she is miserable and at the end he is miserable.
2. I cant see how any feminst group would get behind this movie. DeHeer portrays this woman as a crazy b#$%#. She is vengeful, she is a whore (literaly), she abuses drugs, and probably worst of all she kidnaps their children.

I would hate to meet the kind of people that support this lunatic. Any feminst that supports a person like this needs a check up from the neck up. This women is evil and in real life she would lose both of those kids to the father. Dont mistake me here, the father is no choir boy himself. He certainly has his vices and the writer makes sure you know that. But by the end their is only one victim.

As a movie it is very well written and clever. It is a plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat for what will happen next. It ends on a down note with a little humor built in to soften some of the blow.

In whole it is a film that is worth seeing. It will keep your interest and leave you thinking....
March 19, 2007

Shocking Yes, Intelligent No...

The general plot has been covered by other reviewers so I'll skip to the chase. While the film does deliver the promised shock values, there are just too many contrivances, which make this film totally unbelievable, beyond the scope of say a `willing suspension of disbelief'. And intelligent it certainly is not. The first plot blunder, and this is a deal-breaker: is that when he gets home from work and realizes he is locked in, he just sits down and watches the video. Now I don't know about you folks, but the minute I found myself locked into my own house, light bulbs removed, furniture stacked in the corners, wife and kids missing, locks on doors changed, and especially finding my cell phone battery replaced by a bullet(!), I'd be busting down the windows and the walls if need be to get out of there. I'd be taking that video tape straight to the police to finish it there and figure out what happened to my family. At that point any reasonable person has enough information to know that his family was either killed or kidnapped, that the video tape was possibly made at gunpoint. Whatever the case there is absolutely no question, five minutes in that something is horribly horribly wrong. The bullet is the icing on the cake and anyone with half a brain cell would be running for the hills.

So after seeing all this, his sitting down, smoking a cigarette, having a beer, and watching this video which takes up the rest of the film, all feels very much contrived. It's completely against all human instinct and creates a strong tension that the film definitely feeds off of, but unfortunately its a *false* tension which the movie does not deserve and left me through the rest of the film going "please, this is just dumb, take the tape, get out of there!"

The next layer of false tension, and this is really the broken backbone of the movie, does not come from any intelligent plot or crafty camerawork, but rather just from the pure shock value of everything the wife says and does on film. Its definitely shocking and I give the film two stars just for the shock value, but its all just so unbelievable. It's just not plausible in any way that somebody could be so very smart and so very well spoken and feel so very much abused *every day* and yet so completely fail for all those years to convey these feelings to their partner. In real life, 13 years earlier in the marriage she would have slapped his hand one night and said `I don't appreciate your touching me like that'. End of story.

Another layer I just can't buy, the film goes on and on about how he married her for her body, well what did she marry him for?! There is no allusion at all to his having changed over time, so what gives?

Bottom line, this is another shallow female revenge flick where the woman's horrific acts are justified by the man's density and inability to understand, fueled by false tensions, and ending in his lying down and giving up (once again, oh please).

There is nothing more intelligent to the shock value here than what you'd see in Reservoir Dogs. Shocking yes, intelligent no. But where Reservoir Dogs had no pretenses of being intelligent or thoughtful and was therefore a solid film in its own right, this one falls flat. If you are just looking for cheap shock factor, check it out, but if you're looking for an intelligent, believable suspense-drama look elsewhere. January 3, 2007

Surprising

After watching thisI realizd how much I actually enjoyed it. Not for everyone but if it is for you I am sure you will totally enjoy. November 3, 2006

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