Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Imdbidia Dopamine is an original independent post-modern love story that reflects on traditional/modern views on love in the contemporary world, and on the difficulties of human connection in a world that is every day more virtual.The main characters are Rand -a computer animator working on a project of a virtual pet- and Sarah -a schoolteacher-, who are convincingly played by John Livingston and Sabrina Lloyd. They really have great chemistry on camera.Sarah believes in love, from heart to heart, and in a committed relationship. Rand, is very influenced by his father's teachings on human biology and chemistry, according to which most human emotions - love included- are just the result of biochemical reactions in our body. Love, in that regard, is directly connected to a high production of Dopamine in the brain. However, Sarah is rough and edgy, unpredictable, while Rand is a sweet sensitive guy.The movie is very engaging and believable. The acting is good and the main actors have chemistry. The characters are all well-drawn and grounded - believable. The dialogs are great, fresh and thought- provoking.The story is never straightforward or simplistic, and shows the difficulties surrounding men-women relationships from a new perspective.However, The pace of the movie is too slow. The music is forgettable. I don't even remember it! The colors, cinematography and texture of the film used for the movie are not visually engaging or attractive, which is a pity as the movie was shot in the colorful bright San Francisco. The end is predictable.The movie won won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

tprofumo This is a nice, well intentioned indie film, the kind that I like to support because it tries to examine the lives of real people, and not the cardboard cut outs Hollywood usually fashions its films around.Unfortunately, Mark Decena's "Dopamine" falls victim to many of the same cliches and off-the-shelf plot devices found in countless main stream Hollywood films.The plot has a couple of computer whiz types visiting a San Francisco bar where their paths cross with a girl artist/pre school teacher. The hero, Rand, and the girl, Sara, are immediately attracted to one another, but Rand is too laid back and too cautious to make his move and so his cocky, arrogant buddy Winston (Winston?) winds up going home with the girl for a one night stand. It ends badly and Winston thinks that's the end of it.From there we find out all about the boys, who are in the middle of developing a computer generated pet, a sort of chia pet in cyberspace that you don't even get to water. But some Japanese businessmen are hot for the idea and have been bankrolling them for the past three years.The plot thickens when they wind up having to give it a test run in a pre-school class where guess who just happens to be one of the teachers? Sara's skeptical about the idea, but she likes Rand and the two of them start dating.One can't go too much farther without giving away the plot. But this is where this picture falls down. First because, unlike a lot of current American films that have a plot, but no subplot, this picture is almost equally divided between the Sara and Rand romance and the development of this animated Tweedy bird. It's too much balance. It needed far less Tweedy bird and more human characterization. But the confusion doesn't stop there, for an even silly subplot is the idea that human emotions are really sparked by chemical changes or excretions, thus the title of the film. So occasionally, as if this somehow is funny, we zoom inside people's bodies for a look at their nerve endings excreting the proper chemical at the proper time.Once would have been cute. More than once was not and never did it come off as entertaining.Anyway, Sara and Rand wind up facing some relationship roadblocks and that's where this really sort of sags. Rand, it turns out, is building Tweedy bird, a pet that will never leave you, because he has abandonment issues. Sara is occasionally promiscuous because -- well I can't tell you without a spoiler alert. But I shouldn't have to. Sara has a deep dark secret, but the thing is, its the same secret that has propelled every day time soap opera and Lifetime made-for-TV movie for the past 30 years.Beyond the script, however, the film goes pretty well. The direction is fine and the photography adequate for a low budget indie, although a little too artsy at times, especially on its transition scenes, some of which seem rather unnecessary.The acting is uniformly good, although the hero, played by John Livingston, a sort of Ben Affleck look alike, is a little too laid back to be really believable.But high marks go to Sabrina Lloyd as Sara. She rings about everything you could ring out of the role. She is really very believable when finally fessing up about her dark secret, making you want to comfort her, even as you want to strangle the script writers for this over used plot twist.Lloyd, although perhaps lacking the stunning good looks for mainstream stardom, could be the next Indie queen. Nice piece of work on her part.Overall, though, the picture gets a low 7 out of 10.

eggartrealty I got to see this film at a special "Sundance" presentation in San Francisco last week. I would rate it a "6 out of 10."John Livingston, a poor-man's Ben Affleck, does a good job in the lead role of a San Francisco-based computer animator looking for Ms. Right. The screenplay was pretty good for a typical "guy searching for perfect mate" type of film.However, what ruined the film for me was lead actress, Sabrina Lloyd. She is one of the worst, and most annoying, actresses to be working anywhere. She has an irritating look and presentation.The movie would have been much better with any other lead actress. I do think both men and women would agree on this film since both lead characters are examined for both their flaws and good attributes.

peterhoffman I would tend to agree with creamygreen on the predictability and stock archetypes used to fulfill the writers premise. But the more interesting thing about this film is the premise itself. Can love be boiled down to just science? Can the build up of dopamine make me want to cuddle? Science is always struggling against the nature of human beings with such things as religion and human emotion. Such intangibles make the separation between what you feel and what you can prove the cornerstone of any good debate. The premise for this movie was a good one, it's the execution in the writing and scene development that fell apart. I would love to see the writer do something different with this premise and see whether or not it will draw all of us in. After all aren't we all familiar with something we just "know" but can't prove?