Review by Frank Wilkins

The title of Thirteen Conversations About One Thing sounds a bit like Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Although it really has nothing to do with Kevin Bacon, it does have to do with the fact that no matter where we live and no matter how big the city we live in, we are all connected in some way. Some of us are connected by our workplaces, some of us are connected by our means of mass transportation and some of us are connected by what we pursue.

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is a neat little art house film that weaves a beautiful dialogue driven tale of lives, stories and personalities. It's not a fantastic film, but more like one that uncovers its message, tells its story in a creative and unique manner and then fades off into the sunset without much fanfare. Writers Jill and Karen Sprecher have an obvious affinity for the gift of gab and have masterfully displayed their talents in the script, and in the case of Jill, with her directorial skills as well. They also have a keen sense of design and composition as well. All of the sets are very well constructed and it's obvious that a lot of attention was paid to the mood that would be created by how colors and textures and placement of furniture intermesh with the actors and the dialogue. The result of their collaboration is an art film that focuses on the interconnectedness of the lives of seemingly non-connected citizens of New York.

In a non-linear method of storytelling, we follow four storylines detailing the lives of four separate and distinct individuals. The stories are broken up into thirteen chapters, each one beginning with a headline pulled from the dialogue. The first person we meet is an Ivy League Physics professor, Walker, played by John Turturro who is recovering from a mugging, in the process of leaving his wife and having an affair with another professor. He scrawls on his blackboard during a lecture that Entropy is irreversible. Once two states of equalibrium intermix, things will never be the same. It is irreversible. And paralleling the theme of his lecture are the lives of our main characters. You don't realize what you had until it's gone.

Next we meet Troy, played by Matthew McConaughey, the overconfident prosecutor who is in a bar celebrating his latest court victory. On his way home he hits a young girl with his car and flees the scene, leaving the girl to die. He finds that the guilt is overwhelming and consumes his every waking moment. Guilt is a human emotion that he is only used to dealing with from the prosecutorial side of the table. He is not equipped emotionally to handle the tremendous pressure of the guilt.

Gene English (Alan Arkin), is the mid level manager of an insurance office. He is leary of the contagion of happiness spread by the overly cheerful attitude of a co-worker who goes by the moniker Smiley for obvious reasons. Faced with company cutbacks, Gene sees it as an opportunity to fire Smiley thinking that by doing so he can somehow justify his own sorrow and misery brought about by his heroin addict son.

Finally there is the young Beatrice (Clea DuVall), an ordinary, beaten down maid, who toils daily in the luxury and opulence of her clients' good fortune. Yet she is still somehow able to hold the faith that she was spared her life in a childhood accident for a better reason that only God knows.

While the script is full of constantly changing timeline switches, and quirky little twists and turns that demand your full and undivided attention, the payoff is quite rewarding to those who can keep their head in the game. It's fun to watch their lives intersect and is good to know that genuine thought and foresight can still be a main ingredient in today's films.

The actors immerse themselves in their sad sack little roles yet never bring the action above a melancholy hum. All of the characters seem consumed with trying to carve out a happy little place for themselves in a world full of sadness and despair. Oh and by the way, the one thing about which these people have thirteen conversations is happiness.


Frank Wilkins

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