'Satellite'

A A A Comments By Matt Singer Tuesday, Aug 1 2006

photo: Matthew Kraus/Gigantic Pictures and Glass Eye Pix

Pervasive detachment: Szostak in Satellite

Details

Satellite
Written and directed by Jeff Winner
August 9 through 15 Two Boots Pioneer

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Satellite's two vapid protagonists, Kevin (Karl Geary) and Ro (Stephanie Szostak), fall instantly in love, dare each other to quit their jobs, and drop out of society to become bohemian criminals. In other words, after a brief and cringingly awkward courtship, the film turns into a Brooklyn hipster approximation of Albert Brooks's Lost in America. It should be easy to get behind a movie that plays subway stalking for romance and baby thievery for grand heroism, but writer-director Jeff Winner's tone is so gosh-darned earnest. Everything, from the generically cutesy banter ("Do you love me yet?" "Ask me again at this time tomorrow." "What time is it now?") to the hand job on Metro-North, is played with stone-faced solemnity. Nice low-budget cinematography and authentic New York City locations aside, there's little to engage viewers over the course of 100 wandering minutes. There's no excitement in the couple's love, no buzz from their oh-so-naughty crime spree, just a pervasive detachment, as if these events were being recorded by a camera floating in orbit hundreds of miles above the earth.

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