Michelle Trachtenberg's filmography #4: The Dive from Clausen's Pier (2005)

I'm aware that before this movie, dear Michelle, just entering adulthood, had already done three other films after Buffy, her most notable ones, the big three - Eurotrip, Mysterious Skin, Ice Princess - however, I've decided to skip those for now and leave them out of my ongoing series of reviews of her filmography. I watched all of them shortly after her passing, and I generally don't like rewatching something within a rather short period of time. Besides, as the saying goes, it's best to end on a high note, right!?

The movie is based on the novel of the same name. I'm not going to talk about the book nor compare it to the movie (suffice to say, it's generally considered a poor adaptation). I frankly don't care about the book. I intend to evaluate the movie as a standalone work, both from a filmmaking perspective and screenwriting point of view.

Just reading what the movie was about was enough for me to know - plain and simple - that I didn’t want to watch it and that it was going to be painful to watch and potentially emotionally scarring. I really, really dislike this premise.
To dump a person just after they become quadruplectic, in the moments when they need you the most... a sentient human will always feel like shit, no matter how justified it is. It's terrible. In the end, it hurt even more than I expected because aside from the inevitable, dark and deeply unsettling tragedy - one I would seriously not wish on anyone - I hadn't anticipated so much... well, let's just be blunt and say idiocy on the part of the main character, Carrie (Michelle Trachtenberg),
even for a supposedly romantic movie.

23-year-old Carrie, a girl from a small town, is engaged to her high school sweetheart, Mike (Will Estes). Their wedding is just around the corner. They seem like an ideal couple... the only problem being that Carrie's feelings have faded over time, and it tears her inside but she plans to break up with Mike. Before she gets the chance to tell him however, Mike suffers a tragic diving accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down. Wracked with insufferable guilt, Carrie feels awful about the idea of leaving him in such condition. But she's hurting too and Mike is acting like a jerk out of (partially understandable) frustration, so despite assured condemnation from her closest friends and family, she ultimately
decides - rightfully so, imo - to leave him and move to New York to start a new life that she's been craving for for some time.

The first emotionally gripping 30 minutes, leading up to Carrie's departure for NY that is beautifully underscored by a fantastic track "Where Do I Go" by Marie Digby, which can really pull the heartstrings, are by far the strongest part of the movie. Well, here's when the 'fun' begins... Once she arrives in the city, Carrie is given a new love interest (oh, what a surprise, who would've thought) - a quite well off 35-year-old man named Kilroy (Sean Maher) - and my opinion of the movie and Carrie as a character began to swiftly decline.

Very few relationships that start in high school last a lifetime. As sad as it may be, it's natural that love, especially when it starts young and with little life experience (Mike was the only man Carrie had ever been with), can fade away.
I don’t blame Carrie for this — eventually, even Mike comes to terms with it. Let's not beat around the bush. She just wanted to fuck some more guys. We humans weren't exactly made for lifelong monogamy anyway. The fact that she had to break up with him after his accident was just a tragic coincidence. She didn’t do it out of cruelty but out of necessity — for both of their sakes. She wanted to have a life while she was still young. And we all have our needs. And as I mentioned, Mike’s post-accident behavior had already driven a wedge between them. I'm with Carrie on this one.

Now the part I'm mad about. Why the fuck did they give her such a bad love interest?! I couldn't stand him. He was often an arrogant asshole to her but it seemed like she was infatuated with him like a teenage girl from the very first time she had laid eyes upon him. Back in the town when they had met for the first time, she was totally feeling the butterflies in her stomach just from his arrogant demeanor. Based on her later behavior, I bet she'd have cheated on Mike in no time.
Right after arriving in NY, she visits him in his bar (he gave her the address back in town) for some 'small talk' (yeah right) and ends up sleeping with him after the first dinner, she didn't even know him for two days. Just a day or two since breaking up with her ex. So much for being the 'good girl'.
The non-existent chemistry between these two (not the actors, the characters, the way they were written) was the movie's biggest flaw in my eyes. Rarely do I like a purely romantic movie because rarely is it done well. But even more rarely is it done as poorly as here.

Wanna hear something funny? Well then. Kilroy often treated Carrie with arrogance, they clashed on fundamental life values (which is a big red flag itself), he spoke in a bad way about her friends and Mike (whom she still liked very much as a friend and still thought about him), at one point he was downright insensitive to her, bordering on unnecesarily cruel, which led to a heated argument and Carrie storming out of his apartment. Normally, one would think that's it. Well, not this time, because guess what,
the very next day, Carrie comes to him with puppy eyes, apologizes to him (whereas the only one who should have been apologizing was him) and initiates sex. Wtf?! And what is even more fucked up; one night she calls Mike in tears to apologize (she was still sorry and overloaded with guilt that it turned out this way), but as soon as the call ends, she immediately heads off to hook up with Kilroy again. I sense serious daddy issues. Ironically, it wasn't the aforementioned tragic premise that hurt my eyes the most. It was Carrie herself. I guess that's what happens when a girl meets a chad. Or it's just that this gal is a fucking mess.

So yeah, I had a really hard time trying to sympathize with the protagonist this time. This is the first time I didn't really like Michelle's character that much. It was also her first time filming intimate scenes afaik. They are hot because she's in them. I've seen some comments dissatisfied with her performance in this movie, claiming that she still wasn't ready for such roles and came off as kinda dull and bored. While I do agree there were moments when she did seem a bit lifeless at times, I don't think it was by her own will or from lack of dedication. She carried it when it was needed. She has grown tremendously - both as an actress and physically (boy is she gorgeous in here). I blame the script and its writers.
The script was all over the place, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was their doing. The cast was good. Best so far, even (paper-wise). The writers weren't.

But ultimately, the central theme of the movie isn't the love triangle. Pretty much throughout the whole movie it's the journey of self-discovery. Everything that Carrie goes through, it's because she doesn't know her self. Only at the end she finally realizes that that's what she needs to do in order to move forward in life. The movie tries to teach us that we don't always need to have our life paths fully mapped out. That sometimes, life is just a leap of faith.
But behind the leap lies a world full of new possibilities.
On the psychological level, the movie did succeed. Granted, it tried to be deeper than it actually was, but I understand that capturing the full depth of a book is near-impossible task for a 90min movie. Guess I wass maybe too harsh on Carrie.
We're all lost in life sometimes, I kinda know what it's like. In the end, she realised one crucial thing; that she had always preferred running away from problems rather than facing them. She ran to New York to escape the problems in her hometown. Now she must face them, and she has to start on herself. So I guess the movie was somewhat educational in that sense.

I liked when Carrie said: 'My only ambition is to have ambition.' I think it's actually a genius line that perfectly captures just how lost, confused, maybe even burnt out Carrie is. Possibly my favourite from the whole movie. The more you
think about it the deeper it gets. I still don't like her, but I understand her a bit more.

I gotta appreciate the phenomenal soundtrack. The most enjoyable part of the movie. Well done. No wonder they were nominated for an Emmy back in 2006.

The movie would've been better off being only approx. 40 minutes long. 30 min from the beginning + last 10 min would be perfectly enough. The whole NY plot was in its essence kinda pointless. It's a pity. They could've done better, but oh well.

Normally I would give it like 5.5 (I enjoyed it less than Can't Be Heaven which got 6.0), but Michelle was nothing short of breathtaking in the lead role and I consider it enough to give it bonus 0.5 point. 6/10. Meh.

Take your fucking meds Trachtentranny

based review anon. i skipped the spoiler sections because im planning on watching this in the next few days. 6/10 sounds pretty high for as harsh as you sound about it
take your cyanide pill