The Good
Solid acting, solid writing lifts up a hokey premise.
The Bad
If this is indy film than what is mainstream moviemaking?
Gray Matters is a love triangle between a man, women and the man’s sister. Heather Graham plays Gray, a girl who wants to be in a relationship and wants her brother, Sam (Tom Cavanagh), to be in one as well. So she helps him meet Charlie (Bridget Moynahan) and they hit it off and proceed to engage in a shotgun wedding. During the lead up to these nuptials, Gray and Charlie get physical and suddenly everything gets really complicated. Suddenly, Gray realizes that she is attracted to women. So the movie then tries to deal with that while also upending the classic films from the 1940s.
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While Gray Matters isn’t a bad film, there really isn’t anything about it that is that special either. All of the actors acquit themselves well, however this film could best be described as image conscious with a twist.
Features
The Making Of Gray Matters
Graham, Cavanagh, Moynahan, writer/director Sue Kramer as well as some others are on hand very briefly to talk about this film and its 21st Century themes. This thing is so short it plays like merely an EPK for the movie. We find out the story and Kramer also offers insights into why she wanted to make this film. The thing that I am the most impressed about is how polished this movie feels for it being Kramer’s first time at bat.
Video
Widescreen. This movie has that clear, overly polished feel that is usually reserved for star vehicles. In fact, I think that that is the point. The goal with this movie seems to be to take the “star vehicle genre” and turn it on its ear. They have done that a little bit with the subject matter, but if one were just to watch a few snippets from this film, I am sure that they would probably not notice any of the aforementioned genres being usurped.
Audio
Dolby Digital. The sound on this film was normal. I didn’t hear anything that particularly grabbed my attention either good or bad. As I have mentioned, Sue Kramer is very much trying to recall the films of the 1940s. This movie is layered with very quick, back and forth banter so that these characters evoke just that. There are quick asides and jokes, but a lot of the music and even certain scenes, all feel sadly recycled which might be the point of this movie.
Package
Fox didn’t send me this release in normal packaging. All it came in was a white envelope so I really can’t write about the packaging. If you are dying to see what this film looked like simply click here.
Final Word
Take every Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock and early Julia Roberts film and you essentially have Gray Matters. What separates this movie is that it stars actresses who are popular, but they haven’t yet achieved next level status. Then, there’s also the gay theme which seems like it’s not supposed to be a big deal, even though this entire movie hinges on our main character accepting her own “coming out.” I guess I was surprised that this film didn’t feel more original. Watching the making of piece, I was really surprised that the director didn’t try and stretch the boundaries of what she could put across on screen. Also, there was time when Heather Graham could be described as edgy. In this film it seems like that person has been tamed but good.
Gray Matters was released October 21, 2006.
