Some Velvet Morning (2013)

Directed by: Neil LaBute
Country: USA

Movie Review: Neil LaBute is a filmmaker with a lot of missteps in his directing career. If “In the Company of Men” and “Nurse Betty” were sympathetic starting points, “The Wicker Man”, “Possession”, “Lakeview Terrace”, or “Death at a Funeral” were inconsistent flops. With “Some Velvet Morning”, LaBute tries a totally different approach, which is entertaining at first but ends up tripping again in a pointless game filled with dialogues that never entered on the right track. LaBute, who also wrote the plot, is no Richard Linklater, and the advances and setbacks during the long conversations never convinced me. The story, despite very simple, adopts some strategies to makes us believe it’s complex. Fred (Stanley Tucci) is a successful attorney who leaves his wife to go living with a much younger woman whom he insists to call Velvet (Alice Eve), although she doesn’t like. When he rings the bell loaded with luggage, Velvet seems to be surprised and uncomfortable, saying she has to go out for an unmissable lunch with Chris, Fred’s son. From this moment on, Fred adopts a pushy attitude, showing to be picky and possessive, while Velvet oscillates between submissive (she even offers herself to do him a blow job) and intractable, saying for several times he has to go away. It was perfectly clear that something was not right with this theatrical story marked by discussion, irritation, and threats. The performances were passable, but “Some Velvet Morning” became an unnecessary and often vulgar game of actors playing actors, where the finale stupefies more than satisfies.