Flat Interview

Over the course of three days, I watched Interview with Steve Buscemi (who also directed) and Sienna Miller. Buscemi plays Pierre, a reporter who'd rather be covering politics than interviewing Katya, a flavor-of-the-month starlet; Miller plays the starlet. Because of a coincidental car accident that makes the movie possible, Pierre winds up in Katya's apartment, and they have an evening of conversation in which each of them twists the truth a bit here and there.

I saw the "twist" ending -- something one character has assumed, and another is hiding -- from a mile away, so it lacked a certain amount of punch. And when all you've got are two characters in a room? You need punch.

Interview is based on a Theo van Gogh film, and there are apparently some differences in the ending. It's never bad--Miller and Buscemi both seem believable characters, if ultimately cyphers--but I was expecting more intensity. As it was, I stopped the movie twice before I finished it (which admittedly killed some of the momentum it would have built otherwise, but if it had enough momentum in the first place I'd never have turned it off).

Rob