Moral Rating: | not reviewed |
Moviemaking Quality: |
|
Primary Audience: | Adults |
Genre: | Romance Drama |
Length: | 1 hr. 35 min. |
Year of Release: | 2009 |
USA Release: |
June 5, 2009 (film festival) January 8, 2010 (limited) DVD: March 16, 2010 |
Did God make the world the way it is now? What kind of world would you create? Answer
How can we know there’s a God? Answer
What if the cosmos is all that there is? Answer
Why does God allow innocent people to suffer? Answer
What about the issue of suffering? Doesn’t this prove that there is no God and that we are on our own? Answer
Does God feel our pain? Answer
Hope in the Bible
TRUE LOVE—What is true love and how do you know when you have found it? Answer
DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE—Under what conditions may Christians divorce and remarry? Answer
What does it mean to be “the husband of one wife”? Answer
Music in the Bible
Interracial romance, is it biblical or not?
What are the consequences of racial prejudice and false beliefs about the origin of races? Answer
Has it ever rained frogs or fish or any other strange things? Answer
Should I save sex for marriage? Answer
My boyfriend wants to have sex. I don’t want to lose him. What should I do? Answer
How can I deal with temptations? Answer
How far is too far? What are the guidelines for dating relationships? Answer
What are the consequences of sexual immorality? Answer
Death in the Bible
Are you good enough to get to Heaven? Answer
Featuring | Matthew Broderick (Ben Singer), Sanaa Lathan (Khadi), Michael K. Williams (Ibu—as Michael Kenneth Williams), Michael K. Williams (Ibu), Philip Baker Hall (The Man), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Cyril), Jodelle Ferland (Sandra), Ally Walker (Eliza), Patrick Carney (Evan), Christy Reese (Cassie), Zacharias Foppe (Leon—as Zacharias E. Foppe), Cristen Barnes (Suzie), Mia Ford (Maxine—Cyril’s Daughter), Mia Ford (Maxine), Paul T. Taylor (Doug), Dan Zanes (Sweeny), John Hambrick (Judge Raines), See all » |
Director |
Joshua Goldin |
Producer | Magnolia Pictures, Cold Iron Pictures, K5 International, Ambush Entertainment, Back Lot Pictures, Miranda Bailey, Joanna Colbert, Lampton Enochs, Matthew Leutwyler, Amanda Marshall, Julie Sandor, Glenn Williamson |
Distributor | Magnolia Films |
“Happiness is a state of mind. If the glass is half empty, at least you can’t drown.”
Here’s what the distributor says about their film: “Could fish really fall from the sky? Ben Singer, the world’s most negative man, refuses to believe even the tiniest miracle is possible. He spends all his time fighting the corporate super organism, otherwise known as “The Man.” That fight becomes more personal when visions of “The Man” start to visit him in his small one bedroom apartment.”
Ben Singer (Matthew Broderick) is a failed children’s folk singer, a career proofreader, a compulsive marijuana smoker, and a less-than-extraordinary weekend dad. He’s also the most negative man alive. Floundering in all aspects of his life, Ben’s only comfort comes from regular chess games and friendly debates on game theory with his Senegalese roommate Ibou. When Ibou is suddenly struck ill, and an insensitive municipal employee exacerbates the emergency situation, Ben’s pessimistic worldview seems unequivocally confirmed. His only recourse is to pour his energies into a frivolous lawsuit against the city for depraved indifference. But when Ibou’s sister Khadi takes his place in their apartment, what starts as an awkward living arrangement becomes something more, and Ben finds that cynicism may be all a matter of perspective.
Writer/director Josh Goldin increasingly calls into question Ben’s misanthropy and carefully navigates the character’s midlife melancholy as a possible product of his own mind. Goldin delicately balances both seriousness and levity, giving texture and depth to this offbeat and entertaining character study. Broderick brings the unlikable but undeniably savable Ben to life with the wry antics of his performance.
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