CRUEL BUT NECESSARY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
CRUEL BUT NECESSARY, directed by actor Saul Rubinek (THE CONTENDER), is an unusual story, unusually told.
When Betty Munson (Wendel Meldrum) finds that her husband has accidentally video taped a phone call to a woman with whom he is having an affair, Betty shows him the video in front of the whole family. After that, she becomes a woman obsessed, taping her entire life and surreptitiously recording those around her as well. Nothing is left uncaptured. She even tapes her own pap smear and the conversation she has with her doctor, who seems overly eager to prescribe drugs just to see if they might make Betty feel good.
CRUEL BUT NECESSARY is sometimes a frustrating movie to watch because much of it consists of the typically boring sequences that you'd probably get if you recorded your own life. Still there are some hilarious and unlikely incidents. In one, a would-be Buddhist monk friend of Betty's confesses to Betty that she has sex with her husband as she reads religious texts and he watches porn on the Internet. The best moment in the movie occurs when this friend of hers tries to help Betty release her anger, which she does effectively and hilariously. Too often, however, I kept thinking of the missed opportunities and wished that the writer would have taken more risk with the characters. Most of the activities Betty records in secret are fairly mundane. I kept waiting in vain for something really wild to happen, but it didn't.
CRUEL BUT NECESSARY runs a little long at 1:37.
The film is being shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival (www.Cinequest.org), which runs March 2-13, 2005.
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