Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (2012)

Originally I was attracted to this movie for a few reasons. The first was the incredible choice of a title. As everyone knows, any movie that makes you say a whole sentence to refer to it is always the best (e.g. "He's Just Not That Into You" and "It's Kind of a Funny Story"). Additionally, the movie description builds it up as one of the typically first-rate teen coming of age dramas we've come to know and love (e.g. "The Art of Getting By" and "It's Kind of a Funny Story," albeit this lacks the Emma Roberts presence that was so brilliant in the latter and the only redeeming grace in the former). But really, the reason I decided to watch this film was seeing Aubrey Plaza credited. For me, that's enough to watch just about anything.The first few minutes of the movie made me wonder if the title was some kind of meta-humor and that "this pain" actually referred to the pain that you, the viewer, would endure. The exposition of this film fails to accomplish little but making you hate the main character. Toby Regbo's character is contrived and shallow while the dialogue and narration try to force him to be a "deep" or "existential" teenager. Instead he comes off as moody and fake.It gets better, though. As the movie develops you soon realize that there is no real plot involved. Instead, there are just random tangentially related events that don't really build upon each other. This, as we all know, makes for some excellent cinema. Luckily, conflict is able to be completely forced out of nowhere. Without any build up at all, the middle of the movie erupts into a fireworks display of emotion and F-Bombs for no real apparent reason. We are unable to really connect with the characters and the pain they must be feeling because there seems to be no real cause for as much suffering they pretend to be going through.I would be remiss if I failed to comment on the film's cinematography. Setting aside the actual quality of the set or lighting (which the cinematographer seems to have done) this movie has some weird camera decisions. Watch it and you will be as confused as I was, wondering how someone chose the camera angles and transitions they did.Most of the acting in this movie is terrible. I will not delve into exposing each poor performance; instead, I would like to discuss the acting performances that weren't so terrible.Let's start with Toby Regbo's performance. I was a bit confused on this one because his acting seems to be a roller coaster-one scene it's pretty good and the next it's terrible. I realized this comes down to the terrible dialogue he was given and cannot be attributed to his acting skill. I actually enjoyed his performance at times as it tended to remind of a stressed-out Adam Scott in "Parks and Recreation."Lucy Liu also suffers because of the script. Her character is absolutely ridiculous. She plays a psychoanalyst that is apparently terrible at her job. Instead of actually trying to help the main character with his mood disorders she merely gives him smoothies and goes on jogs with him while giving him terrible advice. At the end she even tells him, a suicidal, depressed teenager with high social-anxiety, that he's completely normal and doesn't need to worry about anything. Umm... excuse me? Did she not hear him tell her he was suicidal?!Peter Gallagher's performance might have been my favorite. The character, I assume, was brought in for comic relief. He did make me laugh but not in the way the director likely intended. His performance is so strange and out of place that the awkwardness of it all brought a smile to my face. I am not one to shy away from cringe-worthy acting so I'll probably be one of a few that loved Peter Gallagher in this movie.Last, but not least, we have the reason I even watched the movie in the first place-Aubrey Plaza. Her character feels completely alien in the strange world of this movie but she plays well to the ridiculous role she was given. Her performance was fantastic and did not disappoint.The movie concludes much as it started-terribly. Since there was no real conflict there's no real point for a dénouement, I guess. Fittingly, the movie just feels like it ends without the characters really having developed or grown at all. Instead, as the credits roll, you reflect on what you have felt during the last hour and a half and remember that someday this pain will be useful to you.

Before I get to what I think about "Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You", I have gotta point out something that really irritates me. In the IMDb summary, it talks about 'James as he works through his life at the therapy sessions'. These are NOT therapy sessions and as a trained psychotherapist, it irritates me when untrained folks do what they call 'therapy'. A life coach is NOT a therapist. Now I am not against life coaches--if you want one, fine. But in this movie a seriously depressed and suicidal young man goes to a life coach instead of seeking appropriate mental health treatment--and the life coach was WAY over her head and very unprofessional for ignoring this. Badly written and a bit irresponsible if you ask me.As for the movie itself, this film reminds me of a couple other Marcia Gay Harden films I've seen lately--wonderfully acted yet with a script that seems incomplete or at least in need of a re-write. Now this does NOT mean I didn't like the film--it was worth it overall--even with its flaws (such as an ill-defined plot and an ending that seemed ridiculously simplistic). The acting and characters were that good. In particular, Toby Regbo (who is credited very low in the cast even though he's CLEARLY the lead) did a great job with the part he was given. Interesting and involving but the parts don't exactly work together to form a pleasing whole. See the film and see what you think.

James Cameron's story SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU is coming of age tale that is, at turns, funny, sad, tender, and sophisticated. As adapted for the screen by director Roberto Faenza with Cameron and Dahlia Heyman this becomes an experimental film that will delight many and confuse some. The cast is excellent and once the audience moves into the rhythm of the narrated story it is difficult not to re-live youth and pull for the lad whose story this is.James Sveck (Toby Regbo) is a lonely young teenager who is tortured by his grossly unstable home environment and is fraught with hating people, suicidal thoughts, depression, and the preference for solitude. It is the summer before he goes off to college at Brown University and he is conflicted: his vain Lothario father (Peter Gallagher) insists that he go to college, his gallery owner mother (Marcia Gay Harden) has just returned form Las Vegas and her third failed marriage - this time to a compulsive gambler (Stephen Lang); his sister Gillian (Deborah Ann Woll) is writing her memoir and falling for an older married Polish professor; and James is working with his mother's gallery director (O'Ryan Graves), trying to make since of art, people, relationships and the chaos of the world that confuses him - the last thing he wants is to enter the college world. His mother lines him up with a Life Coach (Lucy Liu) and slowly James begins to come to grips with a past bad memory and to learn to accept who he is as someone worth living. James only loving connection to the world is his grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) and from her he learns a lot about the vagaries of life and how to cope. The story is told in the first person narration which helps give an intimate inside view of James as he works through his life at the therapy sessions which his parents insist he attend and it is in this manner that we learn about James's past and present through the stories he tells and his recounting of previous therapy sessions and the ambivalences and uncertainties of adolescence.The film manages to balance teenage angst and relationship failures with an equal amount of drama and comedy. This is one of those films that linger in memory long after the final credits. Grady Harp

Someday this pain will be useful to you – Trash It (D) Well this is as bad as its name, a rich teenager finding meaning for his life and hating what he has is ridiculous. Even in the end we don't see finding him any meaning of his life which makes it even more badly. The director somehow manages to nab brilliant ensemble but even their performances couldn't save this lousy script. Toby Regbo was amazing in "Mr.Nobody" so I was really excited to see this but here he is just another Looney wandering in the streets of New York. Deborah Ann Woll is amazing beautiful as always. Marcia Gay Harden, Lucy Liu and Stephen long etc are good in their parts. On the whole, its waste of money and time, better to watch Toby Regbo is Mr.Nobody and Deborah Ann Woll again in True Blood.