The Oranges Reviews
Christopher H
Super Reviewer
August 1, 2012
With a great cast and of-our-time, messy love story, "The Oranges" plays out similar to an off-beat comedy like "Orange County". The narration is used effectively to tell the story and comes from the best character it could (Alia Shawcat), while the story itself is fresh, depicting the older man / younger woman scenario like its never been told before, bringing to light the complex nature of doing what makes you happy, regardless of what people around you will say. Hugh Laurie shows that he definitely has a place following the conclusion of "House M.D." while the rest of the cast fill their roles nicely without much rising above their regular performances.
March 7, 2013
Director Julian Farino ("Entourage", "Big Love") has taken an atypical approach with his new suburban drama, The Oranges, by completely removing the fourth wall of the film and inviting a far-removed and neutral (always unseen) "narrator" into the story who (somewhat awkwardly) might inform the viewer what it is he or she is seeing or hearing or what a particular character is thinking, feeling or doing. The complete dropping of the fourh wall is an unusual move; but it is one Farino must have deemed necessary to try to avoid the pitfalls of the over-cliched storylines of most May-December romances. The Oranges doesn't offer up much new here although Leighton Meester ("Gossip Girl") IS an underappreciated talent.
May 9, 2013
First off, I admire this movie for finally realizing the onscreen romance between Hugh Laurie and Leighton Meester that I've been yearning for since season 3 of House. That having been said, Mr. Laurie's talent goes completely unused in this uninspired, often painfully dull and formulaic pile of crap.
May 8, 2013
I liked it. Twas a nice slice of dysfunctional family life. An good look into how things can go stale and how despite how wrong or inappropriate things may seem to the outside, on the in, it can be easy to justify. Sometimes you have to burn down your house to see the moon. Enjoyable, funny, some awkward and shocking moments for me specifically not having read a synopsis and just counting on the cast to deliver, they do, Hugh Laurie is sincere, Leighton Meester surprisingly acts with confidence and vigour, Adam Brody, although a minor role is always entertaining and again, plays himself. If you enjoy random Indy movies that are tragic, quirky and fun, give it a look.
May 6, 2013
Un "drama-comedia" que, aun con buenos actores que se esfuerzan por hacer funcionar el guión, resulta un desastre. Con gags nulos de risa, personajes hiper superficiales y dialogo basico; The Oranges tendrá tu atención por 15 minutos, y creeme, no vale la pena esforzarse por ver el resto del filme.
May 4, 2013
what was that? A cute little story with not much to say, not much happening! They should have made it 15 minutes long!
Sebastian O.
May 2, 2013
A horrible, comedy version of American beauty with fewer laughs, and half the length but twice as boring.
August 28, 2012
It has charm and wit, but it's also predictable and cold. The weakest part for me though is the fact that Hugh Laurie and Leighton Meester lack the most vital element, and that's chemistry. I would have also loved to have seen much more of Adam Brody's character as he was the one stealing the show for me whenever he was on screen.
March 10, 2013
Peli que quiere ser "indie" tipo The Altar Boys o The Perks of Being a Wallflower pero se queda en el camino. Siguiendo la ruta de Silver Linings Playbook (apantalla sonsos) también se queda a la mitad de lograr coherencia en el desarrollo de la situación y de sus personajes. Buen reparto (la mayoría vecinos en el cine independiente) aún con la participación de los jóvenes actores de telenovela-que-quiere-ser-serie-seria, y así se vuelve una buena cinta palomera.
March 3, 2013
Most interesting part? Comparison between Vanessa and Nina. The latter was able to escape, change her life and go around the world. Vanessa, instead, is repressed because she couldn't go anywhere: go out from her role of "daughter", break the status quo.
November 1, 2012
a terrible script makes the movie sinks and make itself a failure black comedy despite the great performances of its cast
Artfully Bedraggled FR
October 20, 2012
I was, however, rather disappointed by the end result. I guess I maybe could have braced myself for this, after all, on Wednesday I had watched Butter, which came third in the Black List this screenplay topped and ended up being just an awful film. But then again, I hadnâ(TM)t read Butter and I had read this one, I knew this was a good screenplay. Yet, strangely enough, as I saw the film I felt like that screenplay was nowhere to be found here, that the characters all felt pretty flat and that the dramatic developments truly failed to elicit much of a response from me.
It basically goes something like this: you have the Walling clan (David and Paige, played by Hugh Laurie and Catherine Keener) and the Ostroff clan (Terry and Cathy, played by Oliver Platt and Allison Janney), two cheery families who live on Orange Drive in the midst of the New Jersey suburbia, who just happen to be not only neighbors but also best friends. Nina, the prodigal Ostroff daughter played by Leighton Meester, hadnâ(TM)t been around for half a decade and decides to come back home for Thanksgiving having just broken up with her fiancà (C).
Now, what The Oranges did so well in the script that I read was that I was genuinely into these characters even by that point, that I understood why both families would be super pleased if Nina ended up developing something for Toby, the son of the Wallingâ(TM)s played by Mr. Brody, and how for a loop it throws their lives once itâ(TM)s discovered that she developed something for the wrong Walling: David. It was hilarious to see the ramifications of the affair, the older guy cheating on his wife with the daughter of their best friends; the young talented girl, rebounding form a failed engagement by hooking up with the man who had watched her grow up, the father of her childhood best friend, Vanessa, played by Alia Shawkat.
On screen here it just doesnâ(TM)t work as well for some reason, I didnâ(TM)t laugh as much as I did when reading the script and I didnâ(TM)t care as much for what it had to say about what it really meant to be happy in life. Maybe there were changes made to the screenplay, I honestly donâ(TM)t know, itâ(TM)s just that it made no sense to me as I watched it that it turned out so mild, especially when you considered this dream cast it had lined up, all actors who, by the way, really were trying here to make the material work for them.
A big part of me actually started thinking that maybe this would have worked better as a television series on HBO, the network where Mr. Farino made his name directing a bunch of episodes of Entourage and How to Make it in America. That speaks well about the situation it crafts and how itâ(TM)s the kind of character-driven comedy that could last for four seasons on cable and be pretty cool because you have all these neat backstories and details here that you could dive into properly, but the fact that you can see this one going on and on also speaks ill of how it failed at providing a sense of closure to the story.
Maybe thatâ(TM)s just it, though, maybe the story is just too much for us to really get it in 90 minutes. Thatâ(TM)s possible after all, because you do have so much history going on here between the families, and to really show what such an eventuality would spawn between the two and how all of the different players would deal with it would take a lot of time, especially when you consider that The Orangesacknowledges that even though that was the event that got all the problems to come up, the problems in their lives were brewing from long before. So many plot lines in so little time obviously means a good deal of it will seem rather rushed.
Again, though, I keep having to say that it really didnâ(TM)t read like this on the screenplay I read. It read like something that was totally developed with fully-fleshed out characters and a plot with a beginning, middle and end that included a really tangible dramatic tension informing all of the actions. I really do think a studio exec or someone meddled with it, demanded a new style or a new structure, something. You get a bit of nice farce coming through here, but for the most part it felt surprising underwritten.
There are, though, a few genuinely good things about The Oranges which is why I came very close to recommending it. Hugh Laurie, for instance, is seriously amazing as David, he lets you see why his character felt the way he did, he lets you in on the good things as well as the bad things he feels because of what heâ(TM)s doing, and the scenes he shares with Leighton Meester are actually really neat and never played as a cheap joke. The Oranges has a ridiculously talented cast with a script situation that will boggle me for a while, it seemed like it didnâ(TM)t risk much considering how little time it had to grow on us, which is why it just seemed destined as a serialized half-hour thing every Sunday on a cable channel. Oh well.
To be quite honest I was really looking forward to getting to watch Julian Farinoâ~s The Oranges. On the one hand it had a script from first-timers Jay Reiss and Ian Helfer that topped the 2008 Black List of the hottest unproduced screenplays in Holywood . Secondly because I had actually read the screenplay a while back and I loved it and I couldnâ(TM)t wait to see how it played out on screen. Thirdly, I loved the heck out of the cast that was assembled to help bring it to life, which included Adam Brody on a supporting role and Iâ(TM)ve been dying for half a dozen years for him to break out and become big ever since he left The O.C., the show where he played Seth Cohen, the first television character I ever related to, so maybe this would be his breakout film.
I was, however, rather disappointed by the end result. I guess I maybe could have braced myself for this, after all, on Wednesday I had watched Butter, which came third in the Black List this screenplay topped and ended up being just an awful film. But then again, I hadnâ(TM)t read Butter and I had read this one, I knew this was a good screenplay. Yet, strangely enough, as I saw the film I felt like that screenplay was nowhere to be found here, that the characters all felt pretty flat and that the dramatic developments truly failed to elicit much of a response from me.
It basically goes something like this: you have the Walling clan (David and Paige, played by Hugh Laurie and Catherine Keener) and the Ostroff clan (Terry and Cathy, played by Oliver Platt and Allison Janney), two cheery families who live on Orange Drive in the midst of the New Jersey suburbia, who just happen to be not only neighbors but also best friends. Nina, the prodigal Ostroff daughter played by Leighton Meester, hadnâ(TM)t been around for half a decade and decides to come back home for Thanksgiving having just broken up with her fiancà (C).
Now, what The Oranges did so well in the script that I read was that I was genuinely into these characters even by that point, that I understood why both families would be super pleased if Nina ended up developing something for Toby, the son of the Wallingâ(TM)s played by Mr. Brody, and how for a loop it throws their lives once itâ(TM)s discovered that she developed something for the wrong Walling: David. It was hilarious to see the ramifications of the affair, the older guy cheating on his wife with the daughter of their best friends; the young talented girl, rebounding form a failed engagement by hooking up with the man who had watched her grow up, the father of her childhood best friend, Vanessa, played by Alia Shawkat.
On screen here it just doesnâ(TM)t work as well for some reason, I didnâ(TM)t laugh as much as I did when reading the script and I didnâ(TM)t care as much for what it had to say about what it really meant to be happy in life. Maybe there were changes made to the screenplay, I honestly donâ(TM)t know, itâ(TM)s just that it made no sense to me as I watched it that it turned out so mild, especially when you considered this dream cast it had lined up, all actors who, by the way, really were trying here to make the material work for them.
A big part of me actually started thinking that maybe this would have worked better as a television series on HBO, the network where Mr. Farino made his name directing a bunch of episodes of Entourage and How to Make it in America. That speaks well about the situation it crafts and how itâ(TM)s the kind of character-driven comedy that could last for four seasons on cable and be pretty cool because you have all these neat backstories and details here that you could dive into properly, but the fact that you can see this one going on and on also speaks ill of how it failed at providing a sense of closure to the story.
Maybe thatâ(TM)s just it, though, maybe the story is just too much for us to really get it in 90 minutes. Thatâ(TM)s possible after all, because you do have so much history going on here between the families, and to really show what such an eventuality would spawn between the two and how all of the different players would deal with it would take a lot of time, especially when you consider that The Orangesacknowledges that even though that was the event that got all the problems to come up, the problems in their lives were brewing from long before. So many plot lines in so little time obviously means a good deal of it will seem rather rushed.
Again, though, I keep having to say that it really didnâ(TM)t read like this on the screenplay I read. It read like something that was totally developed with fully-fleshed out characters and a plot with a beginning, middle and end that included a really tangible dramatic tension informing all of the actions. I really do think a studio exec or someone meddled with it, demanded a new style or a new structure, something. You get a bit of nice farce coming through here, but for the most part it felt surprising underwritten.
There are, though, a few genuinely good things about The Oranges which is why I came very close to recommending it. Hugh Laurie, for instance, is seriously amazing as David, he lets you see why his character felt the way he did, he lets you in on the good things as well as the bad things he feels because of what heâ(TM)s doing, and the scenes he shares with Leighton Meester are actually really neat and never played as a cheap joke. The Oranges has a ridiculously talented cast with a script situation that will boggle me for a while, it seemed like it didnâ(TM)t risk much considering how little time it had to grow on us, which is why it just seemed destined as a serialized half-hour thing every Sunday on a cable channel. Oh well.
October 18, 2012
This was a cute and funny little flick that was very enjoyable. Hugh Laurie, as well as the rest of the cast are wonderful in it and the outcome of the movie is a little surprising. Go see it if it comes to a theater near you!
Yariv A.
October 17, 2012
Not as funny as it thinks it is and often boaring
October 13, 2012
I found it too wrapped up and a happily ever after movie...that really wasn't...
September 30, 2012
Funny in places, but I couldn't get over the complete nonchalance with which the teenage girl breaks up a family and the nonchalance with which the film treats the marital bond.
Christopher H
Super Reviewer
August 1, 2012
With a great cast and of-our-time, messy love story, "The Oranges" plays out similar to an off-beat comedy like "Orange County". The narration is used effectively to tell the story and comes from the best character it could (Alia Shawcat), while the story itself is fresh, depicting the older man / younger woman scenario like its never been told before, bringing to light the complex nature of doing what makes you happy, regardless of what people around you will say. Hugh Laurie shows that he definitely has a place following the conclusion of "House M.D." while the rest of the cast fill their roles nicely without much rising above their regular performances.
