The other night we watched "Interview," which I was really looking forward to, since I love Steve Buscemi. Unfortunately, this one was mostly a disappointment. Buscemi also co-wrote the screenplay and directed, and I think the fault lies in the script.
The premise was very promising: Buscemi plays Pierre Peders, a political journalist who has for some reason been assigned—very much against his wishes—a fluff piece. He is supposed to do a profile of Katya (played by Sienna Miller), who is a popular soap opera and slasher movie star. He's so resentful of this assignment that he doesn't even prepare for the interview—he hasn't read anything about her or even watched any of her movies or TV shows. For her part, she is so blasé about interviews that she arrives an hour late to their meeting.
Not surprisingly, what ends up happening is one of those cat-and-mouse games where you can't really tell who's interviewing whom, and who's acting. Maybe Pierre knows more about her than he's letting on? Maybe Katya is not as dumb as she seems? Do they really find one another repugnant, or is there more than a little sexual tension in the air?
Unfortunately, the script was so uneven that I couldn't end up believing it. There were far too many moments when Buscemi or Miller seemed to be speaking or acting way out of character—even allowing for the fact that maybe we weren't even supposed to know what their true characters were. That being said, I really enjoyed watching both of them—Buscemi never disappoints (even in a mediocre movie), and this was the first time I'd ever seen Miller. She was very appealing, and there was some cinéma vérité going on, because she is an actress who is often (perhaps unfairly?) judged to be a bimbo, and here she was playing, well, you know.
So, see this if you're determined to explore the entire Buscemi oeuvre (a perfectly honorable aspiration) or have a mad hot crush on Miller (also understandable); otherwise, I can't recommend that you seek it out.
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