Living Out Loud (1998)
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Judith (Hunter) is divorced and lonely. For all the intense conversations going on in her head, when she talks to Pat (DeVito), the elevator man in her NY apartment building, it's the first meaningful human contact she's had in weeks. Pat is no one's idea of a dreamboat, but he may just be Judith's best hope. The film namechecks Looking for Mr Goodbar and plays like a contemporary revision of that once notorious story. Gone, mercifully, is the bloody retribution; instead, there's a very open, hard-won sense of female liberation enacted both in outrageous fantasy sequences and, more subtly, in the central, not-quite-romantic relationship. Scriptwriter LaGravenese proves a whimsical, sympathetic director (in his first feature), but his playfulness sometimes leads him astray. Inspired by Chekhov's stories The Kiss and Misery, the movie's too cute to be more than remotely plausible. Still, it's honestly felt and pitched with some charm by the leads, Martin Donovan and the redoubtable Queen Latifah.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Producer: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Cast: Holly Hunter, Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, Martin Donovan, Elias Koteas, Richard Schiff full cast
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now