Interview (2007)

Enthralling Interview

Steve Buscemi's "Interview", timing in at 86 min. with a whopping 3 setting changes, is a suprisingly intuitive character study for being so short. Veteran Buscemi and up and comer, Siena Miller, mesh with complete ease and everything seems to work well.


Along with a very interesting screenplay, these two actors completely devulge into their characters and really compliment eachothers strong points. I really cannot emphasize how fun it is to watch these two in action. It's strange how simplistic you think the film is for the first half only to get to the second half and realize your watching a complex drama of a rare sort.


Under the radar as of late, this little indie flick is totally worth a rental. Try not to let the ending throw you off too much.


***1/2 Stars out of **** Stars May 20, 2008

Talk about a high tolerance level!!!

Put two completely unlikable characters together and have then talk for a little over an hour, probing to get each ohers secrets that neither one of them (and you) care nothing about and you have a slow moving, hard to watch film. This may have been designed to be an acting tour de force by a couple actors, but it was not. This gave me the impression that it was made as a project for a college acting class. The twist at the end was sooooo lame that I called it as soon as the journalist peeked onto the starlet's computer. This was a twist I saw coming and kept saying to myself: "Please be wrong. Please be wrong." Sigh, I wasn't wrong. Another issue I had was the countless times the writer threatened to leave and did not or the countless times the starlet ordered him out then changed her mind. But what really bothered me about this work, other than the lack of plot, bad dialogue and totally unlikeable characters was the drug and alcohol consumption. Between the two main characters, they drank more wine in 84 minutes than I could consume in a week and, except for about 30 seconds, never got even tipsy and then after that 30 second display of drunkenness, were sober again for the rest of the film. Nobody could drink that much and still be standing, let alone hatching plots. The description on the cover refers to a verbal chess game. No. I gave it two stars for making an effort, but ultimately at some point a film has to deliver on it's promise and INTERVIEW came up short. April 23, 2008

Ambitious but unsuccessful

While I admire Buscemi for attempting what can be one of the harder things to do on film - basically a two-actor script - I hated this. Yes, it's riveting - perhaps the film's deftist feat is its way of hooking the viewer back in every time the two characters threaten to part ways. But by the end I hated the actress and wasn't terribly fond of the journalist. I felt like I'd been enmeshed in the lives of two people unworthy of my time and attention. Also depressing was the ageist message/resolution. Made me nostalgic for films in which age and experience counts for something durable and respectable. Instead, this just drives home today's youth-uber-alles viewpoint. April 13, 2008

Excellent Acting Can't Overcome Lack Of Quality Script

This film should be rented or watched on television before you decide whether to purchase a copy of it.

Both Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller (especially Miller) are among the finest contemporary actors - so it is almost always a pleasure to watch their work. However, this film consists primarily of over an hour of improbable and sophomoric dialogue between Pierre (Buscemi), a failed, morally-flawed (yet self-righteous) journalist and Katya (Miller), a self-absorbed, manipulative actress who, alternatively, pities and preys upon the unlucky Pierre. Through a series of interchanges between the characters, we learn (over and over) that they peddle fiction to their respective audiences and, at times, to themselves - but this is easy to pick up during the first ten minutes of the film. The rest of the film seems intent on exploring how many ways this basic message can be delivered and redelivered.

The majority of the interchanges between Pierre and Katya take place in Katya's bohemian apartment, so the film - especially with its minimalist camera work and limited space - often creates the feeling of an intimate stage play. This would be fine if the writing allowed the characters to expand beyond those limited confines and become interesting. However, both Miller and Buscemi (who also directed)are repeatedly forced to try to "emotionally charge" the alternatively petty and "heavy" dialogue that is aimed at showing, as Warhol would have put it, that each character is, in his or her own way, "deeply superficial": Imagine two actors forced to take a really good five-minute Tennessee Williams scene and stretch it out for over an hour. Mid-way through the film (or sooner), you will probably stop caring.

The silver lining in this otherwise forgettable film is the incredible range of Miller and Buscemi's mastery of quirky character. For me, this aspect of the film made it worth viewing - but only once. March 15, 2008

Cage Match

When it comes to Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller in "Interview", I don't think I've seen a middle aged man and a young woman that had this much chemistry since Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson in "Lost in Translation". However, if Murray and Johanson's on-screen relationship was warm and nurturing, the relationship between Buscemi's Pierre and Miller's Katya is more like a cage match.

Pierre, a self-important political journalist, is assigned to do an interview with a subject he believes to be beneath him ... Katya, a schlock TV/film actress and tabloid fixture. The two characters clash instantly, but end up continuing the "interview" all night in Katya's opulent New York loft, where the two characters ridicule, antagonize, manipulate, charm, seduce and abuse one another, both for their own career agendas and to satisfy their equally inflated egos. Steve Buscemi (clearly a talented director as well as being a great character actor) and Sienna Miller both give terrific performances playing these two complex, layered and often repugnant characters. I found the whole thing fascinating.

Toward the end of the film Pierre tells Katya "What do we both have in common? Neither of us believes in relationships. There's no equality ... there's always a winner and a loser." Watch the film to see which is which. January 22, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...