Audience Member
starts smart and collapses in silliness
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The cast try. But the story is a mess.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Losing Control is one of those worn-out, cutesy-poo romantic comedies that comes off the assembly line of television sitcoms. It doesn't generate realistic characters, natural dialogue nor believable subject matter. It becomes so desperate for laughs that it provides its heroine with the task of going into a singles bar to find a man for the night while wearing a stupid-looking hat. The hat, I'll get to in a moment.
The heroine is a neurotic research scientist named Samantha (Miranda Kent) who is about to graduate from college but only needs to finish her work on a formula called "Y-Kill" which will kill the Y chromosomes in sperm. The theory is that doing this will prevent the transfer of diseases like muscular dystrophy in parents that contain that gene. Not long ago, she got the formula right but can't seem to duplicate it. The movie never really gets to the holes in her formula which is that killing the Y chromosome would produce only little girls. What about parents wanting a little boy? Tough luck, I suppose
The movie alas, never gets to the theoretical nuts and bolts of her experiments. Instead it a lot of time on Samantha's lame-brained experiments to see if she can find her perfect romantic match. The hole in THAT logic is that she already has the perfect guy, a good-looking chap named Ben who has been faithfully by her side for the past five years. It is only at the moment the has is proposing marriage that Samantha gets the idea that she needs to conduct her experiment to find the perfect guy. This involves seeing other men as controls, to prove to herself that her seemingly perfect boyfriend is the one. The obvious question is: Why hasn't she figured this out in the five years that they have been together? This is a movie that operates on theory but never works its way down to logic.
Samantha spends a great deal of time talking to very odd men as part of her experiment, then records the results on a mating qualifications scorecard the resembles the one you use to get at the mini-golf course. The men don't seem like anything out of real life, but out of some bizarre netherworld of funny accents and curious lifestyles. One guy seems nice but turns out to be a married polygamist. Another guy is a tantric sex instructor who's theory of ejaculation leads to a sight gag that I could have done without. And yet another guy is of a foreign origin that I couldn't place who has theories about relationships that wouldn't pass muster in a bad erotic novel.
The supporting characters in Losing Control are all out of central casting. There's Samantha's slutty best friend Leslie; her panicky Jewish parents; her cold-blooded professor; none of which generate even the slightest bit of credibility or interest. They are set-ups for pratfalls, most of which fall of Samantha especially in a nauseating moment when she is leaning over the vat of her formula, drops her notebook into it and then falls in after it.
The dialogue in the movie never feels like anything out of real life. It is one of those movies where you feel as if the actors have been provided a joke book of cute little one-liners.
Now for the funny hat. It is provided by Samantha's mother Dolores (Linn Shay), a panicky Jewish stereotype who insists that her daughter wear it for no real reason that I can recall other than the fact that she spent time making it. It is a white knit cap embossed with a very large Star of David made out of bright flashing lights. Samantha hates it. Why would her mother make something like that? Why make the Star of David flash? Why would Samantha wear it to a night club? Why would it not raise questions from the men she is trying to take home for the night? Perhaps it could have been part of Samantha's experiment to see if she could pick up a man who would be willing to look past it. Perhaps she could have dumped it in the garbage can before going into the club. Perhaps the movie could have ditched the hat, the experiements, and the cliches and just dealt with well-written characters getting to know each other.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Was called 'proof of love" on sky. Very strange film.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I'm a 24 year old UCLA grad (class of 2010) and I loved this film. I love how at the beginning, the director shows the audience Sam's life chart--- a chart she made showing what she's accomplished thus far in the field of science and in her personal life(i.e. "first science experiment" and "first kiss" "first breakup" etc). Her life chart also shows what age she would like to accomplish certain goals. Among this list is "get an updated wardrobe," "travel," "get married," "get a pet," "assistant professorship at Harvard," and "tenure at Harvard." I laughed when I saw this chart because I feel like my friends and I have similar charts and even if some of my friends don't have it on paper, I know we have at least talked about what age we intend to accomplish certain things. What I love about this film is its originality. This film is more than just a cute love story. This film is about a woman who has a passion for science and discovery. She has always felt strongly about the subject and certain about its methodology, until she cannot prove her theory which she needs in order to graduate from her doctorate program. When she has trouble in the lab, the doubt she feels about her experiment carries over into her personal relationship with her boyfriend, Ben. Sam likes to ask questions - she's cautious and analytical. She wants to find a reason for everything. In one scene, her mom says "How do I know?...You've been asking that question since you could talk. It makes for a great scientist, but it's ruining your life, Sam."
This is a great film about letting go of control and the need for proof. Like her boyfriend Ben says, "You don't need proof, you need faith." I used to hate science (I was awful at chemistry) but this movie made me feel so amazed at women in science. Watching this film actually made me curious about science much more than any article in TIME magazine could. I loved watching Sam create a lab in her own kitchen. For the first time ever, science looked fun to me. Through watching the movie, I understood why she was so passionate about it. There are so many great things about this film. I love the casting. I love that the main character, Sam, is not your picture-perfect-Blonde. I'm so tired of seeing movies where this super gorgeous girl gets the super hot guy. I think THAT is pretty predictable. I think the fact that Sam is a natural beauty and she still got a hottie like Sam says a LOT more. It says that he's attracted to her beauty and her passion. The fact that he proposed to her and was so certain about his feelings for her shows that SHE (even if she's not the next supermodel on the cover of Maxim) is the one for him. It shows that Sam being Sam (idiosyncrasies and all) is what makes her The One for him. At one point in the movie, when Sam is talking to a guy at the bar she says something like she suspected she was attractive but that she never received the attention you hear about "a man brining you flowers and all of that." Yet, at the end of the film, the audience realizes (just as Sam does) that what turns out to be more romantic than "flowers and all of that" is the fact that Ben loves that Sam checks her "sleeping stations." He accepts her, supports her dreams, and loves her for who she is.
I love the details that the director/writer focused on. For example, at the beginning we see a picture of Ben and Sam wearing yellow plastic ponchos in the rain. To me, this picture speaks a thousand words. It says that they are co-adventurers, which is exactly what Ben believes him and Sam to be. I love that Sam's mom is a hypochondriac. The fact that her mom is neurotic helps make Sam's upbringing not-so-perfect, which makes her more relatable. Plus, part of her own struggle probably has a lot to do with how she was raised and the types of thinking she was exposed to for the majority of her life.
I love this movie mainly for the following reasons:
- The characters were so real and relatable. The actors who played them were fantastic.
- The film made me feel respect for women in science
- The film made me think about my own relationship and that I should be grateful that I have a boyfriend like Ben and I shouldn't push him away and I should just learn to "let go" and "have faith"
- The film was written and directed by a woman. I am truly inspired!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Simply one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
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