Review: ‘Reunion’

A few minutes into the film it became apparent that I am clearly not the target audience for this. The synopsis sent to me with the screener was this:

A group of smart and successful people, all members of a Yale secret society, meet years after graduation to explore – and rationalize – who they have become. Â  As old wounds open and their dead friend’s secret is revealed, they learn the reality of the past and the reason love and happiness have eluded them.

However, a better synopsis would be a bunch of bitter old college alumni (I wouldn’t call them friends) get together to bitch about their lives and rag on each other. These people are unhappy in the relationships they are in and the lives they are living. They take part in a program, which goes back to their college days, where they talk about themselves on the first day and then criticize each other the next.

The reason why I am not the target audience is because I am still in college and I think that greatly skews my view of these characters. They are all older and the film only focuses on the negative aspects of their lives. The aspects that they want to change but instead just complain about. They are unhappy with where their lives ended up after college. Still being in college, I cannot really relate to this people. I still have the naivetà © to believe that if I want something and work at it, I can achieve my goals.

Looking past that, the actors are all good in the roles with what they have to work with. I don’t particularly like the script but then again this is a character piece and I don’t like the characters so that would make sense since they are directly related. One thing that really bugged me was a Jay and Silent Bob, which did not make sense cause they character that was referred to as Silent Bob had been the more talkative one speaking of sex a few scenes prior. The film is very small in its scope, with a majority of the film taking place within a room and in the main lobby/out front of the building the room is in. The director worked well in this small space and the film is competently made but overall, nothing really stands out.

You can pretty much guess my overall feelings on this film but if you like overly dramatic character studies of unhappy people, than this film may be right for you.

[Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Jerry Cavallaro – www.AreYouStuckLikeChuck.com