The Sweet Life

Studio: Synapse Films

Original Release Date: 2003

DVD Release Date: July 12th, 2011

Review by Craig Sorensen

“…A romantic comedy for people who hate romantic comedies!” states the hyperbole on the back of the dvd case for The Sweet Life.  Well, I do consider myself a person who hates romantic comedies.  I don’t have anything against romance and I certainly don’t have anything against comedy (although I don’t want to listen to you quote The Simpsons all fucking night).  But when those two meet in the cinema you can count me out.  These types of films just lend themselves so easily to the blandest type of filmmaking.  The Sweet Life does try to sidestep some of the trappings of the genre.  I don’t think it’s entirely successful but I wasn’t left pulling my hair out in frustration (as I feared).

James Lorinz (Frankenhooker) plays audience surrogate Michael, a New York film critic/nerd.  He’s the sarcastic & geeky type of character who just can’t seem to catch a break with women.  Of course his brother Frankie (Robert Mobley) is his polar opposite, lucky with women and successful in business.  Michael, being the main character, is the nice, good guy brother.  Frankie is the womanizing, bad brother.  Frankie is dating “bad-girl” bartender Lila (Barbara Sicuranza).  You know she’s a “bad-girl” because she’s got a tattoo and wears black clothes.  Anyway, the brothers end up fighting over Lila.  I don’t want to give away too much of the plot so I should probably stop.  But let me just say that there is a scene where Michael receives a blow job from Lila’s roommate, who is played by Joan Jett.

While the video does eschew a few of the genre’s trappings I certainly wouldn’t say that this is for people that hate romantic comedies.  But, I didn’t hate this.  The script is pretty good which helps a lot.  I do wish that it was a bit snappier, if that makes sense.  The dialog (and especially James Lorinz’s accent) would have benefited from some quicker, screwball style delivery.  But I guess that’s a minor complaint.

James Lorinz is likable in the lead and Robert Mobley has a good screen presence.  I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t seen them in more films as they both show a lot of promise.  Robert Mobley could probably have a nice character actor career playing Internal Affairs officers or FBI Agents who try to muscle the small town sheriff out of the big murder case.  Barbara Sicuranza is a little wooden as Lila but isn’t too bad.  Joan Jett really has a minor role but is good in her limited screen time.

So this thing is shot on standard definition video.  I’m not opposed to shot on video features (yeah, I’m talking about Boarding House) but it just makes everything look kind of amateur.  Sometimes that can work in your advantage (Sledgehammer), sometimes it just makes everything look cheap.  In the case of The Sweet Life it’s certainly a hindrance.  I think that if this had been shot on 16mm or even in HD it would look so much more professional.  Part of the job of a low budget filmmaker is to hide how low your budget really is.  You can do that with good location work and creative set design, which The Sweet Life does have, but you can not skimp on the way it’s shot. I’m not saying that this looks awful because it doesn’t.  It’s nothing to write home about but it gets the job done.  It just looks cheap.

The Synapse DVD looks good for a shot on video production.  I don’t know what else to really say about it.  It looks like video.  Everything is clear.  The night scenes are not too dark so I don’t really have any complaints.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is fine.  I didn’t have any problem hearing the dialog and the music sounded good.  Included with the feature is a pretty good commentary with director Rocco Simonelli, James Lorinz and Barbara Sicuranza; deleted scenes and outtakes; a making of documentary and a trailer.

While I think the picture doesn’t quite live up to the “romantic comedy for people who hate romantic comedies” hard sell, you could do a lot worse.  The script is smart enough and there are some good performances.  It does play like a first film but it shows promise.  Anyway, I’d rather watch this again than sit through something like Runaway Bride.