SYNOPSICS
Year of the Carnivore (2009) is a English,French movie. Sook-Yin Lee has directed this movie. Cristin Milioti,Mark Rendall,Ali Liebert,Kevin McDonald are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. Year of the Carnivore (2009) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama movie in India and around the world.
Twenty-one year old Sammy Smalls has self-esteem issues. She hides behind her frumpy clothes and the slight limp she sustained from a childhood illness. She works in a dead end job as an undercover shoplifter detector at a Big Apple Food Town, her boss Dirk who has his own brand of vigilante justice for the shoplifters. And she considers her parents, although loving in their own unique way, not good role models for her. She doesn't like people touching her in an emotional manner, the ticklish feeling she gets from such being yet another thing behind which she hides. As a result, she is sexually inexperienced. However, she does have a crush on Eugene Zaslavsky, a busker musician who performs outside her supermarket. Each considers the other a friend, but their attempt to take the friendship into a sexual realm results in utter disaster. Although they vow to remain friends, Eugene won't sleep with her again due to her sexual inexperience. So Sammy goes on an expedition for advice and ...
More
Year of the Carnivore (2009) Reviews
Juno meets (a cleaner) Shortbus
I attended the World Premiere of "Year of the Carnivore" at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. This deliciously decadent work can be described as "Juno" meets "Shortbus," although it's certainly not as explicit. Director Sook-Yin Lee was one of the stars of that latter film and is somewhat of an icon in her native Canada. The film rests on the capable shoulders of lead actress Cristin Milioti, a relative unknown, and her co-star Mark Rendall, a terrific budding character actor who has been in several of my favorite festival films of the past few years. What do we really know about sex, when do we learn it, and how do we learn it? That sums up "Year of the Carnivore" and, as Ms. Lee explained eloquently in the Q&A, are questions she still asks herself. It's a quirky love story which is surely, more than anything, a showcase for the broad talents of Sook-Yin Lee, who wrote the script, directed, and composed much of the soundtrack's music.
Learning about sex is weird
I watched this, by accident last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I turned to it, I didn't know anything about it, but quickly realized that it was a Canadian film. There is some weirdness in how Canadians see sex/love, and this film captures that in spades. There is nothing clearly explicit, except for a couple of naked buttocks. However, the scenes of sexual exploration are invariably just slightly off centre and very funny. Does Sammy learn the difference between sex and love? The acting is excellent, and I enjoyed the quirky characters and pacing of the film. In typical Canadian fashion, the denouement is surprising, but ends hopefully. Sook-yin Lee, with the delightful Cristin Milioti as Sammy Smalls, makes this a gentle film with a crunchy satisfaction to it. A surprising delight.
There's got to be a better use of Candadian tax revenue
The credits list 4 separate Canadian government agencies with helping bring this motion picture to the screen. I know Canada has national health care, less crime and spends only slightly more on its national military than the city of Detroit spends on its SWAT unit, but there must have been a better use of taxpayer dollars than this boring nonsense. Installing free stripper poles in ever Canuck's bedroom? Doubling the size of the nation's emergency back bacon reserve? Increasing the minimum wage of Canadian actors so they don't all flee the Great White North for exciting careers as waiters and valets in LA and New York City? Anything would have been better than wasting everyone's time with Year of the Carnivore. Sammy (Cristin Milioti) is a quirky, indy flick heroine. It's appropriate to describe her that way because she certainly isn't a real person or even a close facsimile thereof. She's an undercover spy for a grocery store who disguises herself to catch shoplifters, as though that job exists. She has a limp, except when the film comes to a point where she jumps and dances all over her apartment. At that point her impairment completely disappears. Sammy also has a crush on a street musician named Eugene (Mark Rendall), though it's not like there's anyone else in the movie to whom she could possibly be attracted. Here's the plot. Sammy is so physically self-conscious she can't stand for Eugene to look at her naked body and she's so emotionally walled off she bursts into ticklish laughter anytime he tries to touch her. This rightly frustrates Eugene and he storms off in a huff, spouting off a virtual word salad which Eugene, Sammy and the audience are somehow supposed to take as a challenge for Sammy to go out and get really good at sex by boinking as many people as possible. Like an episode of Sports Night written by Aaron Sorkin, Sammy decides to go for it and the rest of the film is filled up with her varyingly pathetic attempts at intercourse before Year of the Carnivore slumps to a happy ending. This thing couldn't be more artificially put together if the cast was constructed of Legos and Lincoln Logs and then stop motion animated. Sammy doesn't seem like a human being. Neither does Eugene, Sammy's hyperprotective mom (Shelia McCarthy), her sadsack dad (Kevin McDonald) or the screwed up neighbors across the way (Emily Holmes and Patrick Gilmore) with which Sammy has an inexplicable threesome. Sammy's grocery store boss (Will Sasso) doesn't seem like a real person, but that's okay because he does interesting things like beat the crap out of shoplifters and tries to spare the life of a rat caught in a snare. Sammy's co-worker (Ali Liebert) does seem like a living, breathing, genuine individual with motivations and an agenda that are both believable and relatable. So she, of course, is reduced to nothing more than Sammy's wise sounding board. Let me give you some other example of the fakery that pervades this story. Sammy can't bear to let Eugene look at her, but she then has no problem at all dropping her pants in a public place and letting a stranger try and mount her from behind. She's so self-conscious about intimacy that she laughs every time she's touched, but then she goes to town on herself with another woman's vibrator while lying in between the fully awake twin infants she's babysitting. Eugene is introduced to the audience playing what appears to be a ukulele and singing Russian folk songs on the sidewalk near Sammy's store, but he quickly becomes the lead guitarist of a rock band who skyrockets to local club stardom. I'm not saying that rock guitarists can't like other music, but I doubt that Slash ever spent his off hours from Guns 'N Roses as a street musician doing Joan Baez covers. Instead of concentrating on entertaining or engaging her viewers, writer/director Sook-Yin Lee plays out a tangle of off beat hokum. If Year of the Carnivore were consistently funny or at least tried to be, it wouldn't matter so much. Too much of this movie, though, is mundane. That can work with realism. It reeks when paired with mannered, pretentious pseudo-realism.
Cristin Milioti interesting
Sammy Smalls (Cristin Milioti) works undercover security for a grocery store. Dirk (Will Sasso) is her vigilante boss. Her parents (Sheila McCarthy, Kevin McDonald) are over-protective. She is 21, alone, and dresses like a boy. She has a limp and body issues from earlier cancer. She falls for musician Eugene Zaslavsky (Mark Rendall) but their attempt at sex results in her uncontrollable laughter. He wants to be just friends with the sexually inexperienced Sammy. She decides to gain more experience and work on her ticklish problem. This is a quirky indie trying to play with some inappropriate fun. It's not really that funny but Cristin Milioti is awkwardly charming. The story is quirky but there are few laughs. The story gets a bit awkward at times. Cristin's big doe eyes and bewildered mannerisms keep this interesting. This needs work to get more jokes into the script.