52 Films by Women Vol 3. 50. I DO ... UNTIL I DON'T (Director: Lake Bell)
After her 2013 critically successful debut, In A World… writer-director-star Lake Bell has found a more conventional use for three full stops in the relationship comedy, I Do … Until I Don’t . Essentially, it is several sit-com episodes strung together for a 106 minute feature film. Some of the characters could use a little more rounding and there is (spoiler alert) screenwriter 101 structure for an upbeat movie – begin with a funeral and end with a birth. Personally, I have a lot of time for screenwriting 101; usually, I see screenwriting 911. (‘Hello, my inter-racial buddy comedy isn’t working. What do you recommend? What do you mean, give up?’) I admire Bell for putting her character, Alice, in uncomfortable situations. Like having sex in a toilet cubicle where she noticed that the previous user – Alice’s husband, Noah (Ed Helms in a rare foray into a film that grossed under $1 million, if you discount The Clapper ) - hasn’t flushed. Then there’s the movie-stopping ‘ball cupping’ s...