What Happened Was...

An impassioned recap/tribute to a film I've never seen but would very much like to, Tom Noonan's What Happened Was.... Noonan is the character actor best known for his role in Michael Mann's Manhunter and Sillas (who has no credits since 2005 according to IMDB) distinguished herself in the Hal Hartley films Trust and Simple Men. I'm guessing the scene above doesn't do the movie justice. (Sheila Variations)

It's brutal. Claustrophobic. Occasionally funny, in a rather awful way, with stellar performances by the two leads. It is a pleasure to watch both of them work. This is not kitchen-sink realism. This is not cautious "realistic" work. They are characters, first and foremost, with some theatricality to them, some underlying issues and subtext, and all of that stuff which is so often left out of films such as this one. The poster for the film, while understandable from a marketing perspective, completely misrepresents the dark stifling relentless journey you are about to go on. You think you are watching one thing (an awkward first date), and you are, you are correct on that score, but then by the end, you realize you have been watching quite another kind of event. Something much deeper, the two characters straddling the abyss of their own lives.