Dorathen
Better Late Then Never
KnotStronger
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
L. Denis Brown
This film follows the established template for a successful "chick-flick" very closely. It's story, written by a woman, is about an exclusive young ladies finishing school. It is directed by a woman, has a largely female cast, and is designed to appeal most to maturing young women at the time when they leave their protective homes and move into a tempting and exciting world that they probably appreciate may be hazardous; at least until they understand it better. Sensible girls who were brought up by mature mothers are generally duly cautious, but obviously remain curious and plan to paddle a little once they are sure they will not get out of their depth. Such films help them develop a perspective from which they can establish a behaviour pattern that will hopefully be appropriate for their personality, ambitions and life objectives, and there will always be a big enough demand for them to make any appeal to other segments of the movie going population optional. Why then should I, an elderly widower have watched this film; and what right would I have to write comments such as this afterwards, or to pass judgement on its success or otherwise?The answer to the first question is simple - I had not even heard of this film when a librarian I know well chanced to remark whilst shelving their DVD's that it was a very similar story to "Cruel Intentions". This piqued my interest so I looked up other comments in this database. At least two IMDb users have referred to it as reminiscent of both "Cruel Intentions" and "Wild Things", two films I very much enjoyed, so I borrowed the DVD to assess it for myself. Unfortunately, despite quite high expectations, I was very disappointed; whether the fault lay with me for watching the wrong film or reflects more general problems, is for others to decide but I will comment briefly on it whilst answering my second question above. "New Best Friend" certainly showed similarities to both "Cruel Intentions" and "Wild Things". Some of its more extreme characterisation reminded me a little of David Lean's "Wild at Heart" (which I also enjoyed watching), and I also found its emphasis on drug culture reminiscent of "Total Romance". All five of these films (yes I can count - there were two parts to "Total Romance") had one thing in common. After viewing them I felt I had been watching a slice of real life - not just reel life (only an enjoyable story). Unless the acting is really poor, which I do not think was the problem here, this is a very intangible distinction. Ultimately it arises when the viewer never forgets he or she is watching somebody play a part. This may not be due to the actors but to a poor script, bad direction, improbable locations, faulty cinematography or any one of a number of other factors. In this case I believe it was the life experience of the principal members of the cast that was the problem. I did not feel they were too old - good actors can and do often overcome considerable age barriers in the parts they undertake (consider for example Krystal Nausbaum in "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"), and can also simulate many characteristics, such as violence, hatred, piety, devotion, etc. which may not be natural to them, when required for a part. However some things mark a person in ways which are difficult for even the best of actors to emulate, and one of the most important of these is the experience which comes with maturity. These remained a cast of mature actors playing young ingénues and it was never possible to be unaware that they had been out in the world for quite a bit, totally unlike young girls who had been sent straight from protective homes to an exclusive finishing school. Some of these problems of course were due to the script requiring the characters to think and act unrealistically, but I believe the impact of this would have been less with a much less worldly wise cast, with only the detective old enough to give any appearance of having post-schooling experiences of life. How can I give a helpful and appropriate rating to this film? I enjoyed watching it enough to avoid any feeling that I had wasted my time. The cast had obviously tried very hard and I would like to simply thank them for their efforts. This was not designed to be a memorable film carrying an important message. It was one of the 95% of films designed to be enjoyed and then, like most paperback books, forgotten. If almost perfect, it might have qualified for a maximum rating of 5 or 6, badly made probably 1 or 2. As it stands my rating - which I recognise would be of no interest or value to the young viewers forming its potential audience - would be 3. I do not enjoy being destructive about other peoples creative efforts and submit this only because I recognise that IMDb ratings may be helpful to future script-writers or directors considering similar movies.
Baralai Gippal
Geez, another Lifetime movie, but once again isn't exactly the worst movie in the world, but far from the best. I think the main problem is that it's pretty obvious who is responsible for what, and it's generally fairly predictable. Worse yet, some of the flashbacks ended up being confusing, and the viewer is left wondering "Okay, how much am I supposed to care?" One thing I did like is that the movie goes to show you that it's never THAT simple as "the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad", and sometimes it IS evil vs evil rather than good vs evil. Hadley didn't do what she did out of a sense of justice, she did it because she considered herself entitled to a job for being family, AND to eliminate the competition. As for Alicia, it simply proves that a victim isn't always a good person. Some of them really do "have it coming", even if "it" was a painful, horrible death. "The Burning Bed" is a great example of this, but the difference is that the vile man in "The Burning Bed" got exactly what he deserved. But, did Alicia "have it coming"? Some will say that she did, but others don't agree, and the law generally doesn't either.As for acting, it's a mixed bag. Some do a good job, like Mia, but others just came across as indifferent to their roles. They were mostly wooden or simply not convincing. The music was pretty cool though and some of the scenes are nice and steamy, especially if you like girl/girl action. The movie isn't badly shot at all, but given its glaring weaknesses, the strengths are in background, unfortunately.I've heard rumors of a sequel, but given the years, I doubt it'll happen. But, I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel suddenly appeared. If Alicia is as EVIL, conniving and horrible as people say, then I don't think she'll be thinking, "YAY! I woke up from a coma! Oh, Hadley was responsible? Oh! That's okay! I totally forgive her and want the charges dropped!" No way Hadley would be in jail for long anyway, if she even does any time since no murder actually happened. Anyway, worth checking out at least once!
aimless-46
"New Best Friend" is another entry in the "steal another woman's life" sub-genre; the best of which are "Single White Female" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"; the worse of which you can catch almost any afternoon on the Lifetime Channel. For some reason this type of identity theft happens exclusively to women.There are just two basic ways to play this type of story. You can make the woman evil at the beginning and let the audience watch knowingly as she hatches and implements her evil scheme. Or you use misdirection to make her appear a good person, as a seemingly unplanned series of events break in her favor until she is revealed to be evil in the climatic scene. Unfortunately the makers of "New Best Friend" could not decide how they wanted to play it and things crash and burn early. We first meet Alicia (Mia Kirshner) scamming the college's financial aid office for scholarship money. We now know that she is a bad person and will view all her subsequent activity with suspicion. But the director and editor apparently forgot that this revelation had been made and spend the next 50 minutes laying misdirection to make us think that Alicia is a good person. This introduces the only element of suspense, not about whether she is evil but about when the director and editor will wise up and stop wasting our time with transparent misdirection."New Best Friend" suffers more than most from the teen movie curse of a cast too old to be portraying undergraduate students. There are really only two big parts, Hadley (Meredith Monroe) and Alicia (Kirshner). They were 31 and 26 respectively at the time of the production. It almost works for the 26 year-old Kirshner when she plays the mousy version of Alicia but it becomes glaring when she is transformed into the glamed-up version of Alicia. Monroe's casting is simply a joke, about like having Nicholette Sheridan try to pass as a classmate on "Lizzie McGwire". She looks much closer to a mid-life crisis than to a term paper.The producers must have owed a lot of favors because this age issue extends to most of the supporting characters. Taye Diggs who plays the town sheriff is younger than most of the students.The basic setup is that Hadley and two other rich party girls (played by Dominque Swain-age 21 and Rachel True-age 35) are undergrad roommates at college. They share (as their student residence) a mansion that is nicer and better furnished than the mansion on Real World-New Orleans (a premise more believable than soccer moms playing students). Alicia moves into the mansion and begins to take over Hadley's life. At least that way Swain finally gets a roommate from her own generation so the two can have a lesbian scene. Swain's supporting performance is the only good thing about "New Best Friend" and her love scene with Kirshner is fantastic, so cool and artsy that it doesn't fit with any of the other segments, maybe it was subcontracted out to a good director and cinematographer.The unintentionally hilarious story is presented in a series of dreary flashbacks of rampant sex and nonstop parties, each proceeded by a shot of a comatose Alicia in a hospital bed. About half of Kirshner's screen time is spent lying motionless with a tube in her mouth. Not a good career move Mia.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Johnny Beffet
I would have to disagree on most of the user comments on this movie. Most insist it is a piece of trash, not worth viewing. And yes perhaps they're right about the trashy part but in my humble opinion, New Best Friend is in the same kind of league as 90210 - entertaining trash that as much as we hate to admit it, we actually find ourselves engrossed in.Yes, the story is unoriginal and the script poor but the performances by the key actors are good enough to keep viewers interested. Mia Kirsher (Exotica, The Crow:City of Angels) delivers a stellar performance despite the bad material she was given to work with. An actress of her calibre should be choosing better parts in significantly better movies but I'm willing to forgive her for making one bad decision (but that's only because personally I didn't find New Best Friend a complete waste of my time). Meridith Monroe, Dominique Swain and Rachel True are all effective in their roles however one bad performance has to come from Taye Diggs as the officer in charge of investigating Alicia's (Kirsher) overdose which has suspicious circumstances. Diggs usually turns in fine performances but in New Best Friend he just looks bored. Perhaps that's due to the lack of good material he had to work with.Overall I found New Best Friend to be an entertaining movie. Sure there was a lot of things wrong with it and it certainly won't go down as one of my favourite films of the year but it succeeds for what it is - great trash!
