Nothing (2003)

Nothing is an independent film, a comedy of the absurd, by Canadian director Vincenzo Natali - One of those movies that you like or you hate, you get or you miss. You just have to check the extremes in ratings by the Rotten Tomatoes' Community.Nothing tells the story of two buddies -Dave and Andrew-, who have been best pals since school days, a couple of losers whose lives are a mess and going from bad to worse, until something happens and find themselves in a world of white nothingness.The movie contains Natali's recurrent themes, already explored in some of his previous movies: claustrophobic spaces and situations, characters placed in estrange situations that are difficult to explain from a rational point of view, personal and psychological change amidst adversity, among others. Moreover, the two main actors also appear in some of his other movies.The script, by actor Andrew Miller, is original, with great dialogs and situations, and explores a buddy relationship both realistically and fictionally. The setting is also incredibly interesting and perfect to start an experiment about human interaction. Despite the low budget, the movie works well both when is set in the real world and when is set in the Nothing area. I especially liked the creation of the house where the two friends live, which is more a burrow than a house, and matches perfectly the personality and type of person that Dave and Andrew are. The few especial digital effects are very effective and cute.David Hewlett and Andrew Miller are great in their respective roles, especially Miller, who has to change his acting registry dramatically during the movie; but, both actors are believable in their roles and are great lab-rats for this cinematic experiment.One of the main flaws of the movie is the connection-disconnection between the first part of the movie and the Nothing part, which is connected in a very simplistic unconvincing way. On the other hand, I thought that if the couple could vanish the world around them, they could also vanish the nothing around them and go into a new deeper territory, a real experiment., or even change those things that they hate in the real world. The end is inconclusive, although matches the crazy story and its childish characters.I found the movie hilarious, engaging, refreshing and very original. Moreover, the movie is unpretentious and takes itself lightly. Just the few credits at the beginning tell you this.Natali is one of those rare people in the world of cinema who seem to come always with great stories and ideas that are, then, slashed by mainstream critics and mainstream watchers, who praise, instead, movies that are half as interesting and entertaining.

A light-hearted comedy, Nothing shows us a world that we sometimes wish to escape to: a world of nothing. Anything you don't like, be it a stack of bills, a bad memory, or even hunger can disappear at your wish. They approached this movie very well, and with an enjoyable starring duo, there were only a few things I didn't like about Nothing, and they weren't even part of the main movie.First, the post-credits scene (and yes, there is one): Good for a chuckle, but what were they trying to accomplish with that? I was confused and eager to see a return to something after a whole movie of nothing. Instead, we just hear a random assortment of noises and they scream. It tries to set up a sequel in my opinion, and wasn't really necessary, nor was it funny after the turtle crawled out of frame.Second, the trailer: I saw the trailer on the DVD, and like others have already said this, it promotes a horror movie that never came. Oh well, poor marketing I guess.If you see this at your movie rental store, take a look, because Nothing is a great movie to watch. If you have a big screen though, you might want to wear shades.

I chanced upon this movie because I had a free non-new release from Blockbuster and needed to grab something quickly, as the store was getting ready to close for the evening. The plain white cover and title intrigued me. I'm a (relatively speaking) "old" lady and my son is a young man of 30. I adore movies that are sheer entertainment, such as The Sixth Sense, Interview With A Vampire, Harry Potter and Beetlejuice. My son, on the other hand, is a film graduate and enjoys very specialized foreign films, such as those directed by Bergman or Hertzog. We generally hate each other's movie choices, HOWEVER, we both watched and LOVED the movie NOTHING! It was unlike any movie we'd ever seen before. We're both cynical/critical personality types and we usually crack on movies while we watch them -- but in this case we just laughed and enjoyed the film from start to finish. It is our opinion that if this movie had been promoted and shown in the main stream theaters in the U.S. it would have done very well indeed.

world of nothingness. could be boring. how can interesting event happen without people and everything ? but this movie has music video style directing (which will amuse our eyes) well done script (writer knows right timing when new event should happen, probably he was a very good student in his writing class) and good ending. although this movie has many good qualities... what i thought after watching movie was "hmm, this movie is a little bit boring" and i thought "why this movie is boring ? everything seems perfect". exactly 1 min 22 seconds later... i realized why. this movie lacks funny(interesting) dialogs. i mean, two guys remained in the world of nothingness are in same situation as stand-up comedians. they have to entertain audience without anything. they talk too much because talking is one of things they only can do. sadly, they are just boring, normal people. people who watch this movie may wish that two guys remained in the world of nothingness are jerry seinfeld and george costanza. rather than our neighbor, friend, colleagues, classmate, Andrew and David.