A smart, savvy film about the choices and compromises we make in our quests for fulfillment...
Conventioneers (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 12
Fresh: 9
Rotten:3
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Theatrical Release:Oct 20, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: CONVENTIONEERS follows MASSEY, a Republican delegate to the RNC who falls into an unlikely affair with a girl he knew in college -- LEA, a Liberal who has returned to the city to protest the... CONVENTIONEERS follows MASSEY, a Republican delegate to the RNC who falls into an unlikely affair with a girl he knew in college -- LEA, a Liberal who has returned to the city to protest the Republican agenda. Both are political virgins, who have surrounded themselves with like-minded colleagues and have never really confronted the "enemy" in the flesh. At the same time, DYLAN -- a former protester who dropped out of the scene after becoming a father -- must also confront his dedication to the cause when he is hired as a sign language interpreter for the President's speech at the convention. When he tells his activist friends about the job, they try to convince him to stage a protest during the President’s speech instead. The tension builds as Dylan reaches the convention floor itself, takes his place next to the President, while Massey and Lea try and find each other in the chaos outside. What follows will test their beliefs about politics, love and commitment, and will push buttons on both sides of the divide. Shooting entirely in New York, director Mora Stephens and producer Joel Viertel utilized the 2004 Republican National Convention by incorporating events of the RNC into the storyline of the film. The film blends actors with real events and real activists from both sides of the aisle, and features breakthrough performances by actors Matthew Mabe and Woodwyn Koons as the two star-crossed lovers and Alek Friedman as the interpreter, all of whom must choose between their political ideals and their personal desires during the tumultuous days of the convention. -- © Cinema Libre Studios. [More]
Starring: Matthew Mabe, Woodwyn Koons, Alek Friedman, Trevor Murphy
Starring: Matthew Mabe, Woodwyn Koons, Alek Friedman, Trevor Murphy
Director: Mora Stephens
Director: Mora Stephens
Studio: Cinema Libre
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Reviews for Conventioneers
Despite its contrived, predictable elements, the novelty of the setting and ingenuity of the filmmakers give the work a genuine immediacy.
Hardly as thought-provoking as it imagines itself to be, and barely as exciting as the televised convention coverage itself.
The homemade-looking Conventioneers can't decide whether it's a documentary about the 2004 Republican convention at Madison Square Garden or a love story about two activists from opposite sides of the aisle.
It is a sign of the times that audiences will watch these equally selfish lovers and find one infinitely more sensible than the other.
Directed by Mora Stephens and produced by Joel Viertel, the film was conceived before the convention and executed as it transpired.
They may stand in for two halves of a country split by irreconcilable political differences. But as a couple they make not one lick of sense, regardless of how desperate each is.
A successful mix of scripted drama with on-location improv, and a rare instance of U.S. narrative cinema that engages the politics of the moment, Mora Stephens' Conventioneers refreshes on several levels.
One for the time capsule -- not just as an irrefutable visual record of the size, diversity, and vitriolic fervor of the anti-Bush protest movement, but also as a demonstration of how unbridgeable the red-blue divide seemed in those dark autumn months.
Stephens's assessment of the way our sharp political divide has enshrined our most uncompromising attributes is actually rather perceptive.
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