Here On Earth


Starring Lee Lee Sobieski, Chris Klein, Josh Hartnett, Bruce Greenwood, Annette O'Toole, Annie Corley, Stuart Wilson. Directed by Mark Piznarski.

Samantha (Sobieski) works at her parent's (Greenwood, O'Toole) diner in a small mid-western town. Her boyfriend Jasper (Hartnett) is a farmer's son who has been friends with Samantha all their lives. One night while Samantha is working and Jasper is hanging in the diner with his friends, a bunch of rich boys from the nearby private school led by the born-to-succeed Kelley (Klein) enter and get into a skirmish with the locals. As they leave, Jasper gets into his truck and follows, and the two vehicles speed and play a game of chicken until another vehicle is run off the road right into the diner, which catches fire and is totally destroyed.

The boys both go to court and instead of serving any jail time, they are both sentenced to work together for the summer to remake the diner. Yeah, that makes sense. And surprise, surprise. Samantha inexplicably falls for the handsome guy who helped destroy her parents' diner. And then it gets worse.

Here On Earth is the kind of film that give chick flicks a bad name - when a guy uses the term "pukefest", this is what he is thinkng of. The script is about as bad as it can be, using every cliche, every trite manipulation it could, and adding some horribly pretentious and shallow meaning-of-life musings along the way. The character's barely reach being even one-dimensional. Klein's character is a total cliche - the transformation from selfish rich boy to selfless boyfriend is totally unbelievable. The open way in which Sobieski's character handles her "infidelity" is totally unbelievable and at odds with the rest of her character. The fact she even talks to the arrogant jerk who blew up and destroyed her parent's diner defies even being laughed at it is so unbelievable. The way in which Hartnett's character reacts to Sobieski's dabbling's with Klein, and his born-again unselfishness and acceptance is totally unbelievable. The film reminds me of the horrible A Walk In The Clouds in its atrocious dialogue and unbelievable plot. As a matter of fact, Klein's haircut and wooden delivery makes him look and sound a bit like Keanu Reeves. And that is not a good thing. If you haven't seen Klein's solid work in Election, you wouldn't know he could act.

On the plane, I remember a very nice young woman saying she saw it before and thought Here On Earth was a good film. The film does have female appeal if "a good cry" is a definition of a good film. If you're a guy, you will need a strong stomach to sit through this, and because you will inevitably trash this abomination in talking about it with your girlfriend and risk offending her sensibilities, refuse to see this for the good of your relationship and suggest she go see it with a girlfriend, and take her to another film - any other film.




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