The Details (2011)

Like the best film noir, "The Details" forces us to recognize and engage with our darker natures, the often cruel vagaries of fate, and the fact that happy endings are often neither happy, nor endings. It is also incredibly funny. Tobey Maguire is excellent as a philandering Doctor named Jeff Lange, led inexorably down a path of mayhem and bad behavior in his efforts to conceal his impropriety from his sexually aloof wife, played by an equally excellent Elizabeth Banks. The rest of the cast is also quite strong, particularly Dennis Haysbert, whose turn as Jeff's wizened friend/charity case, and seeming moral conscience, is played to brilliant effect. (The "seeming" is very important here, as writer-director Jacob Estes offers a surprising turn in Haysbert's character, that consists of a brilliant excoriation of the tired Hollywood character trope which Spike Lee terms "The Magical Negro.")

With large performances (including Laura Linney as a Blowsy seductress!), bold visuals, and masterfully satirical sound design, "The Details" is stupendously entertaining, a Brechtian meditation on questions moral, social and existential. Estes' film is by turns hilarious and horrifying, often in the same moment. Not to be missed!!!

Fmovies: Dejavu... that's the word that comes to my mind when I finished this movie... this movie reminded me a great deal of 'American Beauty' due to its technique and dramatization... American Beauty has a way different story, but both of those movies get to you in a similar manner... how one event of least importance can turn your whole world up-side-down in time to comes, the details tells you about that very convincingly...

The acting has been tremendous... Other than the spiderman series I have known Tobey Mcguire from the cider house rules, in which his acting was commendable... but the details has a different character for him to tackle and he did it quite well... Laura Linney and Elizabeth Banks are veterans and I do not recall them throwing away their character every before... but the best thing about this movie is the screenplay... hats off to the writer who knows how to whirl the story through the time streams gently... every act was calculated and didn't feel like unnecessary or miscalculated at all...

My recommendations... do see it!

Perhaps I lack the misanthropy to find humor in this movie, but aside from everything seeming to have spun from a battle with raccoons I didn't see anything humorous about it. I have to wonder at the type of person that would find the events in this movie even darkly comedic. Maybe it was my present mindset, yet I cringed through the entire movie. Unless you find coerced adultery with a batsh-t crazy woman and murder funny I wouldn't go in to this movie expecting laughs. It lacked even the vengefully humorous relationships of ..say "War of the Roses" something that I would consider darkly comedic. This merely plunged you deeper and deeper into despair. I'm NOT saying it was a BAD movie....just terribly misrepresented.

The Details fmovies. Tobey Maguire going crazy, and why? Because of his Garden? Well not only, there are reasons too. Plus who can be mad at Raccoons, aren't they adorable? (No I'm the only one that thinks that?) Seriously though: The movie and the shenanigans from all involved are sort of over the top, but still decent enough to watch. The cast list reads really great (Mr. Baldwin giving a speech that is life changing or at least should be for the character involved).

The movie is uncertain where it wants to take the viewer (proof the alternate ending on display/disc), but the ride is still entertaining enough to take. Just don't expect anything to fancy and you'll be satisfied

My favorite movie genre is the dark comedy. In the best of them characters do two things: they say the unsay-able and do the undo-able, but in a naturalistic way that turns everyday events into a journey to that feral, hidden nature that dwells in all of us but is usually only realized in dreams or fantasies. The film that kept coming to my mind while watching THE DETAILS was FARGO , the heavyweight champion of the genre. Clearly, writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes has given the Coen Brothers a run for their money in his latest cinematic effort; the story of a young doctor (played by Tobey Maguire in a career changing performance), who is living a story book existence, with a seemingly perfect home, family and circle of friends. That is, until a series of increasingly impulsive decisions thrusts him into a downward spiral that turns his innocuous existence into a living, hilarious hell. To me, there is nothing funnier than humor that makes me laugh and wince at the same time, and THE DETAILS does that in spades. The ensemble acting by an all-star cast is something to behold, with possible supporting Oscar nods to Laura Linney, Dennis Hasbert and Ray Liotta. Linney especially rises to another acting plane in her ability to turn a garishly eccentric neighbor into a believable seductress. A scene involving Liotta and Maguire on a bridge is one that I believe will still be talked about years from now. All of this is tied together seamlessly by the mature, confident writing and direction of Mr. Estes, who manages to accelerate the mundane to the horrifyingly surreal without a hint of the cinematic self-consciousness many directors have succumbed to while trying their hands at this most difficult kind of humor. Finally, I was really impressed with the way the set design, photography and soundtrack all blend together to create a sense of eerie whimsicality that eased me into a sense of anticipation—indeed participation—to the point where I was immediately rationalizing the shocking climax, as if I were the unfortunate Doctor himself. To sum up, THE DETAILS is hilarious and horrifying in a unique, naturalistic way, an example of independent filmmaking at its best.

The Details begins with a pleasant enough introduction and promises of a humorously dark spin on suburbia . With a stellar cast that offers up top notch performances the movie moves along with a theme-park roller-coaster like flow between comedy and tragedy. Certainly humorous and at times truthful, the movie has a Jekyll & Hyde flow that creates a whole lesser then its pieces.

A seemingly perfect couple, Jeff the Doctor (Tobey Maguire) and the beautiful Nealy (Elizabeth Banks) are in a rough patch in their stale marriage. Two ill advised home improvement ventures lead Jeff to a run in with some pesky raccoons and a even more pesky encounter with a crazy cat lady neighbor(Laura Linney). Doctor Jeff's life begins to unravel as he tries to navigate his way through bribery, blackmail and his urge to feel some sort of spark that is missing from his marriage. A woeful tale of infidelity gone bad unfolds that leads the Doc down a slippery slope. He tries to cure his woes with a few doses of philanthropy, but no good deed goes unpunished, its the details that always gets you in the end.

The performances by the cast are top notch, Toby Maguire as Dr. Jeff gives a complex performance that is humorous, emotional and sympathetic. Elizabeth Banks has flashes of brilliance, the last 10 minutes give glimpses of what more her character could have offered had the filmmakers seen the opportunity. Lauara Linney is comic genius in a turn that is right up there with her best. Dennis Haysbert and Ray Liotta give very pure performances. This movie couldn't have asked for better side players which only makes it more disappointing that the filmmakers didn't create a better landscape.

The Details has brilliant moments of humor, but its see-saw approach between gags and edge of darkness stuff keep it in a gray area which can only be successful in the most polished of hands (e.g. American Beauty). Ironically its in the details, where the Details fails. There are numerous moments in the film where just a few tweaks could have kept it from flying off the tracks. The lasting impression is an attempt at modern story telling that wastes excellent performances by not keeping a tighter grip on the story.

I expect some buzz about the film after its initial premiere. Tobey Maguire gives a fabulous performance and gives all that he could, however once this sort of film is removed from the gloomy shadows of the downer films that typically makes up most of Sundance it probably won't fair very well. Shame really, this could have been a more significant film.