Last night I went to a screening for the new film Yes, hosted by my ultra-cool friend Mark Pincus. The film was absolutely amazing for a few reasons, the first of which was its prose. The entire script was a poem – the lines rhymed in a Shakespearesque way. As a writer, I know how hard that must have been to do, and the actors pulled it off brilliantly. There was a chance that the dialogue could have come off sounding cheesy because of the rhyming element, but that didn’t happen.
A powerful and well-done film, the plot centers on a married Irish woman who has an affair with a Lebanese man. One of the most memorable scenes is when they are in a restaurant and the character “she†does what was only faked in the film “When Harry met Sally.†The only part I thought didn’t quite fit was a small scene in a parking lot where “she†gets in an argument with the character “he.†Sally Potter, the writer/director, was apparently attempting to respond to Sept 11th in this scene, but in doing so, I think she compromised the flow of her film. The tone and feel was different, and as Antoun commented, the actors seemed to fall out of character.
The other cool thing about last night was that it began with some poetry slams by members of Youthspeaks.org. Mo, who is on the board, had great stories about the group, and she also mentioned that they have a yearly fundraising dinner that I plan to attend.