Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009)

[Plain Old Tele]

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Masterful filmmaking has to start somewhere, and Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is where it starts for Damien Chazelle. This is a rough feature, feeling four hours long when it is in fact barely over 80 minutes. This is mostly due to the horrendous sound mixing, that makes dialogue difficult to hear and the music difficult to enjoy. The acting is average, and it has the problem of a lot of student films in that the direction feels like it's actively trying to impress the audience. Chazelle improved exponentially with Whiplash, and hopefully La La Land will continue the trend. Speaking of the latter film, the one bright spot of this film is when vintage-style musical numbers start up and feelings of wonder actually can be felt. These sequences are so well done that briefly you feel like watching the movie was actually worth your time. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is a very hard film to watch thanks to its excruciatingly obvious amateur aspects, but it is still intriguing to see where Chazelle got his start. D+