Review: ‘New York Lately’

It’s not fair to call Gary King’s feature film debut, ‘New York Lately,’ a mess.   It is, to be precise, a mess of ideas, one more in the pantheon of multiple-character angles that criss-cross at completely obscure moments.   To dissect the path this film took to getting made is to view three different movies, in fact.   The ideas behind each character’s story are interesting.   The screenplay is the messy part where much of what went into making the different plot lines intriguing flies out the window.

Cleaning up the mess comes in the execution of the film.   Granted, King cleans up the mess created when he put pen to paper, but what is left is a bland, uninteresting look at everyday life in the Big Apple.   It’s not just that it’s been done before on countless occasions.   It’s that without much style or, seemingly, much to say, ‘New York Lately’ falls under its own weight.

It’s the same, multiple character film you’ve seen a dozen times before.   New Yorkers go about their daily lives, trying to make it through the best they can.   Sometimes their stories intertwine.   Sometimes they are just left out on the edge like some flailing tentacle the octopus can’t keep in line.

There’s Truly (Susan Cagle), an aspiring singer.   There’s Jared (Jared Asato), an HR employee for a big corporation whose company is going through some massive budget cuts.   There’s Veronica (Jenn Dees), an actress who feels her looks just can’t cut it.   There’s Elliot (Jeremy Koerner), an author who believes his wife might be cheating on him.

That’s four, fairly big, fairly interesting characters right there.   The film packs on, at least, two more major characters, and King sets it upon himself to move back and forth between all of these storylines.   He does so, unfortunately, without making much of a connection between all of them either on the surface or in the underlying sense.

If there is an underlying theme, some universal connection between the stories depicted in ‘New York Lately,’ the closest that comes to touching it is the moral ideology the characters must contend with.  Each character faces a moment where they have to make a decision.  Not all of the decisions are predictable, though the setup often is.  Far too many times do we realize where one of King’s flailing tentacles of a plot line is running.

King claims the movie doesn’t try to make connections between his characters, but that is exactly what the film does.  It’s not casual in any way, either.  Most of the connections seem forced and illogical.  When Jared and Truly first meet, it’s duration is just a walk down a snowy street.  They share a few kind words then go separate ways.  This would have been a great place to leave his characters, but King has to continue with the connections.  The second time Jared and Truly just happen to run into each other, it’s as if Destiny is kicking us in the head telling us, “Yeah, these two are going to get together.  Deal with it.”

The scene where King interweaves two groups of three friends (one group male the other female) sitting around, drinking, and giving out their opinions on the opposite sex is quite bland.  Much of the dialogue that comes from it is cliched and near obnoxious.  The actors involved give it their all, and King’s editing between the two scenes elicits a certain level of gift.  However, the entire scene, as with much of the film, is based around the dialogue, and that just doesn’t work.

If there is something that ‘New York Lately’ does wonderfully, it is in King’s editing.   At 92 minutes and with six storylines running through it, King is not given all that much time to build up much within each plot line.   He does a masterful job juggling between the scenes, sometimes creating a nice sense of tension in doing so.

Likewise, each storyline feels like it is given ample amount of time.   Every storyline, that is, except for Truly’s.   She feels like the only character in ‘New York Lately’ who is completely given the short-change treatment, and it’s a shame, since Susan Cagle is, by far, the most gifted actor in the film.

Elliot’s story, where he hires a private investigator to follow his wife, doesn’t work one bit.  The scene where the private eye follows his wife from two feet behind and the following scene where the investigator reveals to Elliot what she finds is just, plain laughable.

“Could my life be any more cliche?” Elliot asks the investigator.

Unfortunately, Elliot, most of this is cliched.   The only element about this storyline that doesn’t completely play into form is the gender of the private eye.   By putting a female into that role, King is, once again, coming up with an idea that is intriguing at first.   Unfortunately, between the way the character is fleshed out by King’s direction and by the performance by Vanessa Streiff, the character’s moments are near cringe-inducing.

‘New York Lately’ is a film that is not all bad.   There are some shining moments in the film where King really flaunts his talents as an editor.   However, those moments, while easy to grab hold of, don’t make much up for the rest of the film, a bland, often-times cliched look at New York life.   Perhaps King, who wore many hats in the making of this film, was spread too thin to give every aspect of the film his undivided attention.   There are elements within the inner workings of   ‘New York Lately’ that show signs of King growing into a talented filmmaker.   However, for now, all we have of his work is this prosaic first attempt.   Here’s hoping he can move on to bigger and better things.

Overall: 2.5 out of 5