In Your Eyes

 

Writer/Director Joss Whedon once again proves that he loves his fans, by releasing “In Your Eyes” his latest penned film directed by Brin Hill on Vimeo for $5.00 only a day after it played at the Tribeca Film Festival. Much like he did back in ’08 with “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” putting it out there for the masses instead of waiting until a DVD release or even a theatrical one. And while the fan in me believes that was the reason for releasing the film this way, the critic in me believes you get what you pay for with this one.

Not really complaining here, I love the idea of watching a movie written by Joss Whedon for five bucks, which is less than the price of a movie theater ticket. You save on gas, you avoid the constant glow out of the corner of your eye from the people texting, and no one kicking your seat is always a plus. But this particular film borders on the line between ‘Indie’ movie and ‘Lifetime’ movie. It does have the taste of the familiar cleverness with some of the dialogue and the story of a couple trying to connect is vintage Whedon.

Rebecca (Zoe Kazan) a soft-spoken well-to-do house wife and Dylan (Michael Stahl-David) an ex-con with no direction share a supernatural bond, where they can see though the others eyes, hence the title. Since they were children they have been able to feel each other’s feelings, usual the stronger ones, like fear, anger, and even it can manifest itself by way of physical pain. Separated by several states the pair’s connection enhances when they are able to talk to each other, but only out loud, as to make it difficult to do in public, except when masked by cell phones (something they never actually use to communicate, weird). They enter each other’s life just when the other needs someone to talk to and they develop a relationship that gets more complicated as they become closer.

Kazan as Rebecca is really good, not as good as she was in “Ruby Sparks” a couple of years ago, but she nails the role. And Stahl-David performance is much like the entire film; by the numbers. Except for the still unrecognizable Jennifer Grey, there’s no surprises or twists, not that there has to be, but without it, the only thing Whedon and Hill give us is the same old same old. There is nothing unique about the relationship except for the supernatural nature of it and little else. You don’t really care very much about the leads or if they will ever end up together and it’s certainly hard to buy by the ludicrous last twenty minutes of the film.

Okay, now it sounds like I’m complaining. Maybe my expectation was too high, but after “Avengers”, his take on Shakespeare’s classic “Much Ado About Nothing” and “A Cabin in the Woods” Whedon was bound to show his mortal side. He’s not a geek god we all assume he is, he’s just a guy who creates fantastic worlds for us to play in, he can lay down some un-paralleled dialogue, and has the ability to pull you into whatever he’s working on and turn it so that you enjoy it on a level you never thought possible. Okay, I changed my mind again, he is a geek god. But it’s understandable that not everything is gonna be a homerun. I would put “In Your Eyes” in the category of the Nicholas Sparks books-to-films, good date movie, but with the seemingly endless music montages it has, not once do we get the classic Peter Gabriel track of the same name, false advertising.

--Robert L. Castillo