ThrillMessage
There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
MBunge
This film has to be the result of a drunken wager. One of Edward Burns' running buddies must have bet him a case of scotch or something that he couldn't make a movie where the main character was a woman. So, Burns set out to write and direct Purple Violets, where the main character is a woman…and lost the bet. That's because all this thing is good for is demonstrating in painful detail that Edward Burns cannot make a movie where the main character is a woman. You won't find too many better examples than this of a talented storyteller struggling against the very story he's trying to tell.Patti Petalson (Selma Blair) used to be a writer. She even got a thinly veiled account of her college years published, but that was many years ago. Now she works as a realtor for a condescending ass of a boss, is married to a pudgy dick with an English accent and hasn't written a word in forever. Then one night, while having dinner with her caustic girlfriend Kate (Debra Messing), Patti has a chance encounter with Brian Callahan (Patrick Wilson). He's the old boyfriend she dumped back in college who went on to become a famous crime novelist and just published his first attempt at serious literature to horrible reviews. Brian still hangs out with Michael Murphy (Edward Burns), the wiseass who dated Kate in college until he broke her heart. Brian also has an intolerable bitch of a girlfriend.Do I actually need to explain to you where the plot goes from here? Seriously? Can I not just tell you that this is Burns' feeble attempt at an utterly unsurprising romantic comedy and leave it at that?What I do want to make clear is that this is NOT an ensemble movie. Purple Violets is about Patti Petalson. She's the main character and there's no doubt about that. However, within the first 15 minutes of the film it is stunningly obvious that Burns is not only much more interested in the secondary characters of Brian and Murphy, he doesn't know what to really do with Patti and doesn't know that he doesn't know what to do with Patti. There are far more scenes between Brian and Murphy than there are between Patti and Kate, with Kate reduced to even more of two-dimensional bitch than Brian's intolerable bitch of a girlfriend. Heck, I'd bet there are more scenes between Brian and Murphy than between Brian and Patti and more scenes of Patti and Murphy than Patti and Kate. And whenever Burns writes a scene of Patti by herself, she's never doing anything. She's standing and moping or she's walking and moping or she's looking out the window and moping. And for those few scenes of Patti and Kate together, can you guess what they do? That's right, they talk almost exclusively about Brian and Murphy, with Patti even taking Murphy's side and defending a guy she hasn't seen in over a decade against the woman who's supposed to be her best friend.Purple Violets is like something that would be dissected in a woman's studies program at an all-girls university as an example of false consciousness. Burns thinks he's making a movie about a woman and her struggles in life, but he's not. He's really making a movie about a couple of guys. That's where all of his attention is. That's where all of his effort is. That's undeniably the movie he wants to make. He just doesn't realize it. In addition to being awesomely misdirected, this film isn't very well done in general. The best stuff is (surprise!) the relationship between Brian and Murphy. But Patti and the other female characters are so slackly written that it seeps into everything else. I mean, Burns actually has someone say out loud "My heart is breaking". It's all either shallow or truncated or both.Purple Violets is terrible. I hope Burns didn't skimp when he bought that other guy the case of scotch or whatever he owed him.
dandan-dandan
The truth is the movie has a mediocre plot, which means the movie could turn out either way, good or bad, and it all depends on the execution by the actors and directing. Personally, I am okay with the directing. It's somewhat realistic. However, I am really bored by the acting by the 2 leads. The supposed leads Blair and Wilson have almost zero chemistry, almost devoid of any honesty and feelings in their interactions. I am annoyed by the obvious 'acting" by Wilson, and the lack of energy and presence from both. It's totally unpersuasive that Blair's character could be a "talented, passionate and honest" writer. Neither the script nor the acting could convince us either way. What's really funny was the scene where Logue broke up with Blair. She was hardly really upset, but then the dialogue made it sound like she should have. There are three really awesome actors in this movie, who saved the movie by keeping the audience from walking away midway. And that's Messing, Burns and Logue. Messing and Burns should have been the leads. They simply steal the show, especially Messing. The thing is she has presence, and lots of authenticity to her acting, that convinces you that she is the character, even though the plot makes her out to be an unlikely grumpy woman. Donal Logue did a fantastic job to show himself a talented actor in this movie, where he was cast a character much different than he was type-casted into before. Even his body language and postures adapted to a younger and more sophisticated New York resident with a foreign background. For a second there, I though this was a younger foreign actor. But the confidence and presence drew me to notice it was indeed Logue! Great job.Yes, I must agree. There's a degree of trying too hard to be woody Allen in this movie, but lacked all the essence of acting. All I got to say is that if they redo this movie, and make Messing and Burns the lead, they may make triple the box office. Not for the names, but for the acting.
jodefien
I kept expecting to care about the characters in this film at some point, but realized after 45 minutes that mostly I disliked each and every one of them. If this is an inside view of NY's thirty something elite I wonder why more buildings don't voluntarily fall on the city to rid it of it's self indulgent and invariably uninteresting population.Of the four leads, Debra Messing was the only one to make the slightest sense and she was as two dimensional as a paper doll. Selma Balir did a credible job with her character, since the character seems to be as bored as she is boring. The men were all caricatures of various types, but none were in the slightest individuals to be sympathized with, and I can only hope that there were few who could relate to them in any way. I was bored. BORED! BORED! BORED! I recommend you look discreetly aside at the video store and opt for a documentary on paint drying. Or, if you are feeling particularly in need of self punishment. go to the kitchen and stick a fork in your eye.
mariv913
I saw the movie tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was the world premier of the movie and the entire cast and crew was present. Ed Burns held a question/answer session after the film. If you like his other work you should enjoy this film which takes place in NYC and the Hamptons. The story follows the lives of old college friends who meet up when they are in their early 30s.The 4 main characters used to be lovers, but those relationships ended back when college did. I would place it under the romantic comedy category. A friend who attended the premier with me commented that she felt the movie was made in a very 'woody Allen'style. Enjoyable.
