Love Liza (2002)

Wilson Joel (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is quietly suffering after his wife Liza's unexplained suicide. He finds a note from her but can't bring himself to read it. Her mother Mary Ann Bankhead (Kathy Bates) tries to help. After a breakdown at work, he's asked to take time off. He starts to develop an unhealthy addiction to gasoline and joins the world of model plane enthusiasts.Philip Seymour Hoffman does a brilliant job sucking the life out of his character. He is one of the best actors of his times. However the movie is lifeless. It's 90 minutes of waiting for Wilson to open a letter. The movie has no drama and no tension. It's not much of anything other than PSH.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death at the grip of drug addiction has taken another supremely gifted artist from this world. Hoffman's work in film and sage will be sorely missed. From his everyman looks to his grasp of the human condition he was definitely a king among men. For my next bunch of reviews I'll focus on many of the smaller independent films that Hoffman so often shined. In 2001's "Love Liza" a man struggles to deal with the sudden suicide of his wife (Liza) and his personal spiral into some deep dark places. The examination of his life and his questionable future The film was directed by Todd Louiso and co-stars Kathy Bates and Jack Kehler. It also won the Screen writing Award at Sundance.Wilson Joel is your typical geeky web developer who comes home to find his wife has killed herself, leaving him with a bunch of unanswered questions. Was it his fault? How could this have happened? He is consumed with grief and looking for a way out he starts huffing gas fumes to get high. Instead of food he keeps a red plastic gas can in his fridge. "Do you smell Gas?" is a question heard more than once. The plot revolves around a suicide note that he can't bring himself to open. Wilson's mother in-law, Mary Ann (Bates), grieves the loss of her daughter and her relationship with Wilson is pretty awkward to say the least. Does she blame him? Everybody at work is very supportive of his situation but after one of the many lies he tells a new "best friend" is forced upon him. Thinking that Wilson is into radio control planes, Denny (Kehler) a real enthusiast, comes over so see his plane. Wilson wants nothing more than to be alone and huff gas, passing out wherever he may be. He is going down a tough road and needs a friend, but most people are not willing get him the help he really needs. He buys a plane from a hobby shop and starts to huff the special fuel that they run on. Him and Denny have some fun together at a Radio Control competition and discuss his situation. He has to read the letter eventually but when? and where?Wilson finally has to deal with these pent up feelings and frustrations and decides to open the letter. "Love Liza" is fantastically cast and acted, its a character piece that really hits hard. Although it does have its comedic moments. Hoffman's performance is superb and like a lot of his roles you can see the real person behind the character. "Love Liza" is available on DVD, so search it out and give it a watch.

"Love Liza" is a film with a riveting premise - a man's life is turned upside down by the sudden suicide of his wife. The film focuses on the reverberations of the event in the man Wilson's life as he attempts to cope and understand - simultaneously.Philip Seymour Hoffman's Wilson is the obvious centerpiece of the story, and Hoffman delivers a great performance, bringing the viewer into the convoluted world of this poor man. Director Louiso, in his feature-length picture debut, brings welcome shading and spacing to the story, highlighting Wilson's teetering sense of reality. The musical score by Jim O'Rourke (formerly of Sonic Youth) also deserves special mention for perfectly underlining the highs and lows of the story with shimmering and lilting instrumentation.Unfortunately, the sum is not the positive cumulative of its parts. "Love Liza" is a bit of a confounding piece of work in this regard, because it truly succeeds in conveying its basic premise. Where the film misses is in how it draws Wilson, the supporting characters, and their relationships. Despite good performances, the supporting characters feel superficially presented, with a sense of artificiality in their connection to Wilson. Kathy Bates is really wasted here, and Jack Kehler's Denny seems to be best conveyed in a particularly stupid line about going to the bathroom. The evolving character flaws of Wilson in reaction to the event begin to feel tacked on over time as well, and ultimately, there is a feeling of being kept at arm's length.The film does deserve kudos for not looking for pat answers to Wilson's dilemma and of course, for Hoffman's performance. Overall, though, I found the result to be less moving and more unsatisfying than I'd hoped. I'd give it 5 out of 10.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Wilson, a software engineer who has just lost his wife to suicide. The movie traces Wilson's descent into gasoline sniffing, erratic behavior, wanton risk taking, and ultimate self-destruction.P.S.H. and Kathy Bates turn in good performances but, whereas Hoffman is the central focus, his performance is a little more mannered and forced than we have come to expect from him.Maybe there is no more meaning to grief than as a highly personal experience, but as a moviegoer having suffered through this man's trauma for an hour and a half I wanted more reward. The hook to keep us interested was the suicide note, but it turned out to be rather generic. At the end we are just left with lots of questions: what was Wilson's wife like, did he drive her to suicide, how come he had no friends, what was it in the relationship that the suicide knocked him for such a loop, what was he like before the suicide, does the final scene imply that Wilson has taken the final step into madness or that the only way for him to recover was to leave everything behind?If you are a P.S.H fan, then maybe there is enough here for you, but I think this movie will be a little too dark for most viewers.