Results

Texan slice of life with characters who live on the edge. Quirky. Unpredictable. Finally satisfying. Glad Pearce gets to speak in his native Australian accent. Even happier that no reference is made to it!

Netflix's streaming service can be a vast wasteland, but it can also be good for finding off the beaten path films that never would have played at any theater near me and that I might not wanted to have spent $10 on if they did. I've discovered a few real gems this way, as well as waded through some muck. "Results" is not a gem, but it has quite a bit to recommend it.

I get tired of overly-scripted, overly-serious, over-produced studio films about BIG and IMPORTANT themes, so it's nice to come across films with laid back, indie vibes, about "regular" people dealing with the daily act of living, and that's what "Results" is. Kevin Corrigan is Danny, a depressed schlub who hires Kat, a personal trainer (Cobie Smulders) who works at a gym run by Trevor (Guy Pearce), with whom she previously had a fling. Things get uncomfortable when Danny and Kat's professional relationship crosses the boundary into the too personal, forcing Kat and Trevor to face some emotions that both have been trying to ignore.

This might all sound overly scripted, but it doesn't feel that way as it plays out. It feels loose and even rambling at times, and indeed one of my biggest complaints about the film is that it can't seem to decide who its main character is. But what I did like about the screenplay was its ability to upend our suppositions about these characters and the kind of people they represent. At first, our sympathies lie with Kat and Trevor at the sake of Danny. They're attractive, fit, ambitious, everything we're told people who are in charge of their lives should be. Danny is weird, kind of creepy, ugly, dumpy. But as the film evolves, Kat and Trevor find that they have as much if not more to learn from Danny than he has from them, and that a life driven by striving for striving's sake isn't the path to inner peace and contentment, no matter how many power smoothies you drink or articles of Under Armour clothing you wear.

Guy Pearce is one of my favorite actors, and he's really good in this film, doing a lot with material that another actor might not have been able to sell as well. Corrigan is the other standout, giving a minor miracle of a comedic performance, slowly winning the audience over until he almost makes us believe that being out of shape and stoned is what we should all aspire to. Smulders is the one who left me cold. She never makes Kat likable and very frequently makes her annoying. The best scenes in the film are those between Pearce and Corrigan, where Mulders isn't present at all.

Giovanni Ribisi appears here and there in a pointless role as a pothead attorney.

Grade: B+

This quirky and unpredictable comedy, I would imagine, will not appeal to everyone but it had enough droll humor and charm for me to end up liking it. The 3 leads here Guy Pearce, Kobie Smulders, and Kevin Corrigan, I thought were all excellent in their particular roles.

Smulders captures the screen portraying Kat, an intense, sexy, and volatile personal trainer working for Power 4 Life gym, located in Austin, Texas. The fine actor Pearce plays Trevor the owner of the gym, who's extremely serious about fitness and expanding his business. He's once had an affair with Kat, and they clearly have chemistry between them, but they can't seem to really connect on the same wave length.

Along comes Danny (Corrigan) as a walk-in to the gym. He's a strange guy who's looking to improve on his out of shape and nebishy persona. He's just been through a divorce, but unexpectedly has inherited a windfall from his estranged mother who has died. When Kat is assigned to him as his personal trainer, Danny develops a fixation about her, which will lead down paths I didn't expect.

All in all, there are a number of aspects of this movie that surprised me, but it does strain credibility at times, for sure. It's not a laugh-out-loud type comedy but more droll and cerebral, and this may not appeal to some viewers. The film, written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, ended up winning me over with its good performances, quirky humor, and an upbeat finish.

This is by all means a "little" simple movie. Nothing spectacular, performance or script-wise.

The direction is boring and slow and the lack of music in most of the scenes makes more obvious the poor script and dialogs.

The spotlight of "who is" the main protagonist is confusing. You may think initially that is Kevin Corrigan (a bad choice for this role) but he isn't. Actually all the characters are mild and seem insignificant.

Cobie Smulders with a large experience in rom-com TV, makes her character a little less flat but in the end her talent is wasted. So are the talents of Guy Pearce and Giovanni Ribisi.

Overall: Very simplistic. Not really cute. Not an actual comedy.

Wesley Morris (man, I miss reading his reviews on Grantland every week) called this movie "sneak attack romance." It is also sneak attack comedy and character development. But the story never feels forced. Maybe that's the nuanced performances or maybe it's the little moments that make the whole thing feel genuine. I did not know these movies were still getting made, honestly. I'm glad they are. They make you laugh without punchlines, and that should not be so rare.