Suzanne’s Diary
For Nicholas
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Feature: C+
Richard
Friedenberg’s writes and directs this adaptation of James Patterson’s drama
novel Suzanne’s Diary For Nicholas
(2005) and against all odds, it works more often than not. A writer/repairman, Matt (Jonathon Schaech)
finds himself in a situation torn between two women at two times very close in
his life and to his heart. There is Kate
(Kathleen Rose Perkins) who is a publisher he falls for and gets deeply
involved with, but something does not feel right to him about the situation and
he leaves.
It turns
out he falls for a country doctor establishing herself named Suzanne (Christina
Applegate in a good performance) who does not want kinds due to past trauma and
surgery, though she might reconsider if something happened that would not
threaten her health as an against-all-odds pregnancy could kill her if it
happened.
Melodramatic,
uneven and a bit long at 90 minutes, this could have really worked if some of
the dumber dialogue has been dropped in favor of more character study. Perkins is not bad, but the chemistry between
Schaech & Applegate is very convincing and a little more ambition could
have put this over the top in a way that was a homerun. As it stands, it is an interesting film with
some problems and an ending that might be too pat for its own good. At least it is mature and somewhat
intelligent, which is more than we can say for most such releases recently.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is not great, but not bad either,
looking like it was shot in HD of some sort.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 is simple stereo at best, but dialogue is nicely
recorded for the most part. The case
says it has surrounds, but they are very faint and affect the clarity of the
dialogue. There are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
