william-tasker-nz There are a lot of good dramatic performances in this film, but sadly they are all wasted since there's no point to the movie that I could discern, no consistent style or character development or anything else you might reasonably expect. It starts with an interviewee who confesses that he involuntarily calls out a ridiculous phrase about political freedom during climax, so you think - OK, it's going to be all-out Python-esque comedy, then nothing else in the movie matches that tone. It seems like a bunch of auditions for different types of movies stitched together, with an after-thought theme tacked on (a woman trying to make sense of her abandonment by a lover). Basically it's self-indulgent film-school pretentiousness masquerading as some sort of deep psychological exploration.

michael dye This is an incredibly boring film.The pretentiousness is unparalleled, as other reviewers have said. There isn't anything insightful here, it's just a mismatch of overly-dramatic monologues that don't make a coherent point either individually or in the aggregate.Before I judge Krasinski (the director) for the writing, I should consult the book from which the film was sourced. But such would be too tiresome. Whatever the original text offered this film discards. It also wore me out on Krasinski. I recommend skipping this one and avoiding his other work in the future. He's just not content with the trite, but funny, Jim from The Office. This is one actor / director who wants to reach deeper and will sacrifice coherence to pretend it.

Austin Layne Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is a movie that is so unafraid to openly criticize the feminist movement and, more importantly, the effects it has had on men. But to call the movie masculist or an example of the Men's Movement would be to contradict the entire point of the movie.John Krasinski makes his debut as writer/director and also does a little bit of acting with this film. Most people know him from his fantastic portrayal of the sarcastic Jim in The Office. On The Office John Krasinski is a smirking young man who always has a witty remark to make. Here he is a tad more than that...Don't get me wrong, the movie has several comedic scenes, which are presented through the film's interesting narrative structure which mostly consists of the titular interviews, such as when one subject states his trouble with sexual relationships is due to his screaming of "Victory for the forces of Democratic freedom." Sure this is funny at first, but over the course of the movie as we keep coming back to this man, we see that the more he talks about it the less he treats it with humor. This is where the movie begins to make its point.In each interview the men begin to speak in a way that is humorous but then becomes less and less comedic as they speak about it. Because they realize the truth of what they are saying. They understand that they shouldn't make a joke out of it because it isn't funny for men to get hurt by women. The movie is essentially several examples of this, aside two vignettes where one man describes how to be an actual "good" lover and another discourses on whether or not he should love or hate his father for being the passive bathroom attendant.Few of the men are hideous, even in a spiritual way and I believe the movie's title refers more to the way the woman who interviews them would like to see them and how easy it is for her to demonize them and call them hideous and think that they aren't human beings. This is the movie's final message, that everyone is a human being and that everyone should be seen as such.The movies ending is one of the few perfect endings I've seen from a movie. It shows John Krasinksi's character tell a story to his ex-girlfriend and conductor of the interviews about the hippie he cheated on her with and how she was once raped, but could see the humanity in her rapist and that in that moment he realized he could never lose her. But she left shortly afterwords. It then shows a flashback to before any of the interviews were conducted and why the interviewer is conducting them. Her college professor friend asks her why. When she begins to answer he says something like "Don't tell me the reasons, tell yourself" Then it ends with nothing else but a quote from David Foster Wallace, the author of the book on which the movie is based. Which is perfect, because to try to extend it beyond the point of desolation that the movie ends on would be an exercise in futility.To cap off this lengthy analysis of the movie, I would like to plead to John Krasinski, who said he probably won't write and direct another movie, to reconsider this position, because you are a fantastic writer/director.

nkl6564 I honestly can't figure out the low score on the site(as of writing this it has a 5.7). Brief Interviews with Hideous Men was one of the most powerful movies I've seen. Usually John Krasinski is a happy-go-lucky fun loving guy. But here you can really see a darker and much more serious side of him. His end monologue is one of the most intense stories I've ever heard.The story revolves around a researcher studying the different effects of feminism on men by interviewing them. She interviews many different men, and they all have problems. At first, it may trick you into thinking that this will show you a bunch of dumb stories, but it continuously gets darker and darker. You get to hear some truly powerful and gripping stories about different men's lives. They all really hit hard but never feel like they are specifically designed to shock you.The editing is probably the most potent ingredient in the mix. While it can be a bit disorienting at times, it almost always has a powerful effect on the viewer. Also, it doesn't throw everything out for you to see. You have to read between the lines for some of it before it tells you anything, really. The final few scenes pull the whole movie together so well that I really hope Krasinski writes more screenplays soon. This was an extremely intense movie to watch. It's not something you will pop in on a regular basis, or indeed watch more than once or twice, but that's not say that it was anything less than powerful and a great piece of storytelling.