Movie Review: Nobel Son

Director: Randall Miller (who?)
How I Watched It: Free Screening at Loews Boston Common theater
Date: Tuesday, December 3rd

I didn't watch the trailer before going to see this movie, so I really had no idea what to expect. Regardless of my lack of expectations, what I got was a convoluted, campy story about a womanizing professor and the consequences of one of his numerous affairs.
Here's a hint: when a movie opens with a scene of professor Alan Rickman in flagrante delicto with a female grad student, the scene played up to full comic effect, you can generally cast aside all expectations for any sort of serious drama. However, the creative team behind this movie try to mash together an impulse toward the comic with a family drama and campy dialogue, along with mediocre acting across the board. The best that the movie ever achieves is being ironically funny in the sense that you are laughing at the movie, not along with the intentions of those who made it.
The screenplay is as much of a trainwreck as I recall myself watching in the recent past. It essentially boils down to a series of increasingly convoluted dramatic plotlines wrapped around contrived witty dialogue to lighten the mood that misfires on every occasion. The cinematography at least made the inspid plot look interesting, but as the movie proceeded further and further it served less and less effectively to distract.
My one positive about the movie was the soundtrack. The music was very good, even if the movie did not quite measure up to the style of the soundtrack. It still made me very intrigued to get my hands on a copy at some point soon.