Verdict
Summary
The filmed adaptation from director Michael Steinberg is an ambling, somewhat unattractive and unflattering film for everyone involved, although it seems to dwell in a certain time and place that is quite distinct. The score by Michael Convertino is amazing and easily the best aspect of the film, but the movie itself is underwhelming, unfulfilling, and anticlimactic.
Plot:
A couple from Arizona split up in a weird, unexpected way, and by happenstance both of them go their own way over the course of 24 hours, leading to new developments and realizations in their own lives.
Review:
Recently fired from his TV salesman job at an Arizona shopping mall, Nick (Tim Roth) is full of angst and wanderlust. On his last day of work, he decides to steal the most expensive television in the store just for the fun of it, but he also decides to leave his longtime girlfriend Beth (Bridget Fonda) on a whim to go seeking out some kind of meaning to his life, which leads him to the house where he grew up at in the desert. Meanwhile, Beth is stuck at the apartment where she’s been left with the impossible task to pack all of hers and Nick’s stuff up to move to Montana due to unpaid rent, and since Nick left her all of a sudden, she’s confused, crushed, and demoralized with her predicament. Along comes a stoner named Sid (Eric Stoltz), who has been hired to repaint her apartment before the new tenant moves in, and instead of doing his job, he basically just hangs out with Beth and falls in love with her over the next few hours as she reels in her depression. When Beth’s best friend Carol (Phoebe Cates) drops by to help Beth pack, the three of them hang out, smoke weed, and chat the hours away, until Beth decides to sell everything she owns at a yard sale. When Nick comes back from his unfulfilled quest, he tries to mend his relationship with Beth, but she’s already slept with Sid, and now everything is a mess.
Based on a play written by Roger Hedden in 1985, Bodies, Rest & Motion seems to capture a Gen X mindset, and it might as well be a post-millennial movie because the characters are basically clueless, without responsibilities, and don’t much care where destiny or fate takes them. The filmed adaptation from director Michael Steinberg is an ambling, somewhat unattractive and unflattering film for everyone involved, although it seems to dwell in a certain time and place that is quite distinct. The score by Michael Convertino is amazing and easily the best aspect of the film, but the movie itself is underwhelming, unfulfilling, and anticlimactic.
Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release of Bodies, Rest & Motion is a fully loaded edition, and comes in a new 4K transfer, plus a 30 minute introduction by the director (which I watched and found somewhat interesting), a new audio commentary by the director, Stoltz, and Hedden, plus a new intro by Hedden, a short film from the director, behind the scenes footage, and more.
