Movie Review: Might want to avoid getting “Entangled”

Entangled_press2

In “Entangled,” we can size up Marin, played by Ana Girardot, by what we see and hear. Or we can let “what happened to me” make up our minds for us.

What happened to her was a miscarriage.

“It hurts,” she says, in a French-accented voice-over that plays like a long letter or email she is sending to her boyfriend of many years Mark (Peter Mark Kendall). She hates that he wants to “act like nothing happened.”

But she doesn’t want to talk about it. She keeps him at a distance, living on her own in a posh Manhattan apartment.

She hates when he and others ask “if I feel better.”

And she gets really mad when one of Mark’s friends’ wives offers the feeble comfort of “I am so sooo sorry.”

Confronting Mark later, it’s “Who do you think you are telling them about MY miscarriage?”

Her therapist has to hear that Mark “doesn’t get what it is like for me,” even though the shrink knows things Marin won’t say to Mark, her “secrets.”

“I’m tired of being in my head. When I look at myself, I see negative space.”

We begin to, as well.

“I want to see myself through someone else’s eyes.”

Way ahead of you there, dear.

We’ve seen just enough of Mark in the office, chatting with friends about Marin, how she “needs space/needs time,” to wonder if he’s cheating on her. With say, his stunning assistant or somebody else his less ethical married pal invites to their table in whatever bar they’re “working late” at this night.

Marin? “I just want to touch someone new.”

First-time writer-director Milena Lurie seems to want “Entangled” to be a portrait of the emptiness Marin feels in recovering from this most solitary of traumas. What she’s managed is something far less flattering and indulgent.

As we hear Girardot’s plaintive, flat-voiced narration — “Escobar: Paradise Lost” is her most famous credit in North America — we’re treated to Marin showering and pondering, Marin taking a soak and musing, Marin getting dressed in her too-sexy underwear, Marin hanging out at a fashion shoot with friends and peers.

A model? Maybe. Something or someone pays for that penthouse.’

She summons a pal (Lucy Walters) with a simple “Can you come over?”

She shares an erotic dance with another model-beautiful woman at a bar-party.

She reconnects with a French ex (Grégory Fitoussi) who finds an excuse to “be in New York.” And when he’s late, she lets herself be picked up by a charming, rich bar prowler (Jonathan Cake).

And at some point, for me it was distressingly early, you check out of Marin’s plight, her fragile emotional state, and pick out everything beyond her great looks that just…grates.

As pretty as everything and everyone are in this vapid film, there’s nothing to disentangle here, no empathetic performance to cling no matter what sympathies we bring to someone going through this.

1star6

MPAA Rating: unrated, nudity, sexual situations, smoking, alcohol, profanity

Cast: Ana Girardot, Peter Mark Kendall, Lucy Walters, Grégory Fitoussi and Jonathan Cake.

Credits:Written and directed by Milena Lurie. A Samuel L. Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:32

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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