CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES (director/writer/editor/producer: Eric Byler; screenwriters: Jeff Liu/story by Mr. Byler; cinematographer: Robert Humphreys; editor: Kenn Kashima; music: Michael Brook/songs sung by Cody Chestnutt; cast: Michael Idemoto (Michael), Jacqueline Kim (Darcy), Eugenia Yuan (Lori), Matt Westmore (Justin), Shizuko Hoshi (Auntie Margie), Kimberly Rose (Annie); Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Marc Ambrose; Visionbox; 2002)
"Charlotte Sometimes is a gem. It's always enthralling."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Eric Byler's (who is half-Chinese) stunning debut feature, shot on a DV CAM and made for under $500,000, in which he directs and co-writes and co-edits and co-produces, is a compelling character drama centering around Asian Americans. For an American audience, it's not that often when they view an Asian American film without someone having to kick someone's ass and one that's not a martial arts film. This low-budget indie was financed by Visionbox, an L.A. company launched a few years ago by indie producer and former Samuel Goldwyn executive John Manulisset. It's set in modern times in L.A.'s Echo Park. At the 2002 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, Charlotte Sometimes was a co-winner of the Narrative Feature First Film Audience Award; it also won Special Jury Prize for Narrative Filmmaking at the 2002 Florida Film Festival.
The artful film draws us immediately into its fascinating real-life characters and we never cease to be drawn to the engrossing love interest story and its shift in its triangular relationships. Sex is the hot biscuit served as the dish needed to top off a relationship, and its urgency and weight it carries ultimately betrays how selfish an act it could be and how misunderstood the need for companionship could be. It also tries to get at the underbelly feelings felt by the film's hero about racial mixing and assimilation and lets its lingering images settle in during moments of provocative silences to allow the viewer space to draw their own conclusions.
Michael (Michael Idemoto, he's also a director of the film "Sunsets") is a quiet, sensitive, passive, amiable, twentysomething auto mechanic. He's a mechanic who also reads a lot--at night he's reading Camus. He took over the family auto shop when his uncle died and his brother and no one else in his extended family was interested in it. At the nearby club he frequents after work, he met 3 years ago an attractive Asian waitress and aspiring actress, Lori (Eugenia Yuan), and rented out to her the bottom room in his converted house, now a duplex, located on a hilly street. For the last 10 months she has been living with a hunky half-Asian musician she thinks she loves but has trouble relating to him outside of sex, Justin (Matt Westmore). Michael yearns for her, but can't express his love for her openly as they instead form a caring platonic brother and sister relationship. She feels comfortable coming over at night after a hot round of sex with Justin, where her groans could be heard through the thin walls, and watching TV on the sofa with him and innocently falling asleep on his shoulder. Michael is also mindful of looking after his elderly and widowed aunt (Shizuko Hoshi), as he dines with her regularly on Sunday evenings.
The independent-minded Michael spurns Lori's offer to be fixed up on a blind date, and bravely tells her he's not afraid to be alone. While relaxing at the club, a place with a mixed clientele of whites and Asians, he's attracted to a mysterious looking Asian woman who says she's a writer and calls herself Darcy (Jacqueline Kim). She makes eye contact with him, they go for a walk and she both leads him on and curtails him from knowing much about her. She further teases him, by saying she's not going to be around for a long time since she's only visiting the city she has roots in. After also warning him that she's not his type or for that matter anyone's type, she then further baits him by saying: "Men don't want to be around me; they only think they do." Michael finds her alluring and can't resist trying to win her. When she offers him a one-night stand, saying sex is the fastest way to get somewhere, he turns her down by saying he only wants more time with her and wants to take no short-cuts. His reluctance could be because he's really in love with Lori and just can't admit to that.
Warning: spoiler in the next paragraph.
Darcy is anxious to meet Lori and when they do it turns out that they knew each other from childhood and Darcy is really Charlotte, and that she was the one Lori was going to fix Michael up with. They double-date, play tennis, and retreat to Michael's for a rooftop barbecue. After 51/2 days of Michael and Darcy seeing each other without having sex but with him showing an interest in her, Lori figures it's best not to tell him. She makes Darcy promise that she will not try to take Justin away from her and to please keep it real with Michael. But the dynamics of the relationships change when Michael on his own discovers the secret.
Charlotte Sometimes boils over with an insightful conclusion. The ensemble cast excels through their restrained performances, as they explore the hidden depths of the characters they are portraying and dig out their character's quirks in a subtle manner. The lead characters have made mistakes and can't seem to learn anything but through their vulnerabilities, their loneliness, their repressions and their psychological pains, this in particular applies to the experiences the two women and Michael are undergoing. Charlotte Sometimes is a gem. It's always enthralling. Its bittersweet and unpredictable ending reveals the pains it takes for those in need to stop being afraid to face themselves and not hide from the world through various diversions.
REVIEWED ON 3/13/2003 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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