Ever wonder how you screwed up a relationship? Now You Know...
It’s always scary for a director or producer when they are making an independent movie that gets picked up by a company then the key players of the deal move on. It generally means that their film will never see the light of day. In Jeff Anderson’s (Clerks, Clerks II) case, he got lucky with his screenwriting and directorial debut with his film Now You Know. It was originally part of Miramax and then when the Weinstein Brothers left the company, they took this property with them which is why it has taken 3-4 years for this film to be made available to the public.
Anderson plays Gil, one of the lead characters in this romantic comedy that is presented by his buddy Kevin Smith, who also has a cameo along with Smith’s wife who poses as a hooker at a bachelor party. That’s where the film begins. It is at the night’s events for the groom-to-be, Jeremy (Jeremy Sisto, Six Feet Under). Unfortunately, Jeremy has just learned that the wedding has been called off by his fiancée, Kerri (Rashida Jones), but he doesn’t know why. The next morning he says bye to his buddy, Shane (Todd Babcock) as he travels back to New Jersey on a long flight with Kerri. Once in Jersey, they go their separate ways - Kerri with her saucy and tough friend, Marty (Heather Paige Kent); Jeremy hooking up with his two moronic pals that he’s known most of his life, Gil and Biscuit (Trevor Fehrman). Jeremy doesn’t know how to tell people that the wedding is off but finally starts mentioning it once he gets in a bar with his friends and begins drinking. They, of course, act like “cool” guys and tell him he needs to keep his freedom as they try to guess why Kerri dumped him.
Marty, on the other hand, thinks that Jeremy did something wrong and puts all the blame on him while trying to deal with her own personal crisis while trying to console her friend. Believe it or not, for a guy who is known for playing a doofus, Anderson comes pretty close in achieving his goal of making a “bisexual” film as he explains in the Q& A portion of the extras. By that, Anderson was aiming to make a realistic movie that would appeal to both men and women. Some people even ask how he was able to understand women, get into their minds, etc.
Now You Know is better than a chick flick from the male point-of-view-because there is some guy humor in the film that doesn’t go so far over-the-top that it won’t appeal to the women. By the same token, there’s not any really mushy stuff for the men to suffer through or for those more independent women who think that some heartbroken females are portrayed as too needy. This has a real honest feel to how a broken-up relationship feels between a couple who really have no idea why they broke up or possibly even why they were together in the first place.
The film also has cameos by quite a few people that you’ll probably recognize from various movies and TV shows. A couple include Debbe Dunning, the Tool Time Girl from Home Improvement and Paget Brewster from the recently canceled Huff.
Matt Sorum (Guns ‘N’ Roses, Jeff Paris, Velvet Revolver) & Lanny Cordola (Giuffria, House Of Lords) supply the soundtrack for this low-budget film that looks as if it were shot on a medium budget. The lighting and cinematography are well done, the script isn’t too shabby, there are some good actors throughout most of the film and there are a lot of locations considering it’s a “talking head” movie.
There is an introduction by Anderson and Smith in the Special Features section, but you can also choose to view it straight from selecting “play.” The only other extra beyond the lengthy Q& A is Anderson & Smith providing some insightful and funny commentary throughout the movie. There are subtitles in English & Spanish, closed captioning and the audio is in English 5.1 Dolby Digital and is presented in widescreen.
I could never tell you all the reasons why my relationships have been so screwed up, but this guy managed to find out in less than a week without having things thrown at him or without having his record collection tossed out of a window. Worth a rental at the very least.
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NOW YOU KNOW