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CHAMPION OF BEST INDEPENDENT FEATURE at Santa Barbara Movie Festival
SYNOPSIS
Andrew Gurland is a brand new York City filmmaker thinking about building a documentary about a guy that is average their wedding up to a mail order bride from offshore. A beautiful woman in her twenties whose ad and letter piques his interest after corresponding with Burmese women from a catalogue, Adrian selects Lichi.
The filmmakers buy Lichi’s trip to America, and very quickly she finds herself immersed in American married life-which, in Adrian’s home, involves bit more than an individual’s typical cooking that is familial cleansing duties. Andrew initially appears at night undeniable fact that Adrian treats Lichi similar to a friend. The project that is entire to a startling halt whenever, without Lichi’s knowledge, Adrian takes her into the gynecologist for a session about tubal sterilization. Lichi quickly discovers just exactly just what the physician check out is for and hysterically rejects the process. Andrew believes Adrian has crossed the line as soon as a hot argument ensues, Adrian terminates their participation within the documentary.
8 weeks later on, Andrew gets a shock see from Lichi, who’s here to expose a shocking videotape documenting her strange life as Adrian’s spouse. Feeling partially accountable for her increasingly despondent situation, Andrew urges Lichi to go out of her spouse while offering their apartment as being a safe haven.
What transpires is beyond any such thing Andrew or Adrian could imagine, as Lichi lead to their experiences them through a few unpredictable activities, fundamentally culminating in a showdown in Miami that reveals the lengths hopeless men goes to to avoid being alone.
A documentarian funds an NYC doorman’s Asian mail purchase bride in return for the best to film the feeling.
Score: R (for language plus some unsettling intimate material) Genre: Comedy Directed By: Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland published by: Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland In Theaters:mMar 11, 2005 large On DVD:mOct 4, 2005 Runtime:91 moments Studio: First Independent photos
Cast: Andrew Gurland Eugenia Yuan Adrian Martinez
IN REGARDS TO THE PRODUCTION
Women, have a guy was got by us for you personally! He has got a reliable work, has a residence moments far from Manhattan, has their own group of tires, and it is a lover that is animal. What isnt there to love about bachelor Adrian Martin?
Well, just ask Lichi, Adrians mail purchase spouse, fresh from the air air plane from Burma. The person of her hopes and dreams actually is a crude, rude, sloppy doorman from Queens keen on having a maid than the usual spouse. Their household is a dump, their vehicle is on its final leg and their favorite pastime is feeding mice to his animal snake.
This is actually the match built in hell that begins filmmakers Andrew Gurland and Huck Botkos deliciously surreal satire MAIL PURCHASE WIFE, a dark comedy that presents exactly how horrifying, hopeless and pathetic the look for lifetime companionship can beespecially when that search is completed by catalogue. The activities that follow when you look at the film are extreme examples of lust, betrayal and revenge, all shot in documentary structure to provide a feeling of truth to the hilariously unfortunate and tale that is sordid.
Gurland additionally stars when you look at the movie, playing a filmmaker namednot so coincidentallyAndrew, who funds Adrian and Lichis wedding in return for the ability to movie the experience that is entire. The most unanticipated twists in this extremely astonishing comedy is Andrew defies their role once the impartial “observer,” becoming actually tangled up in Adrian and Lichis marriage and for that reason one of many figures of his or her own documentary movie. And simply just like the social individuals hes chronicling, Andrew actually is a whole lot more complicated and unpredictable than initially satisfies the attention.
TOMATOMETER CRITICS 63% | AUDIENCE 69%
March 25, 2005 | Rating: 3/4 Ruthe Stein San Francisco Chronicle Top Critic Mail Order Wife: Mockumentary. Featuring Eugenia Yuan, Andrew Gurland, Adrian Martinez, Huck Botko and Jose Canseco. Written and directed by Botko and Gurland.(R. 89 moments. Away Region theaters.) The thought of parodying a documentary worked brilliantly in “This Is Spinal Tap” and “Waiting for Guffman” because their subject material had been awfully ridiculous in the first place. “Mail purchase Wife,” the most up-to-date faux documentary, takes a more impressive danger by tackling a significant subject — the punishment of females from poverty-stricken nations taken to America by males who want your own servant significantly more than a partner. In the event that cruelty depicted, such as for instance forcing a unique bride to do in porno films, had really transpired, the perpetrator could possibly be arrested. Co-directors Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland, whom appear as earnest documentary filmmakers of the identical title, pull it well by never ever winking at the audience or signaling in almost any fashion that this is simply not a real tale. Botko and Gurland, whom had written the script, allow their imaginations operate crazy. But it is difficult to laugh at strange circumstances realizing that such a thing is achievable whenever a lonely guy delivers away for a mate away from a catalog. All of the actors utilize their genuine names except Eugenia Yuan into the name part. Yuan, an up-and-comer next noticed in “Memoirs of the Geisha,” is heartbreaking as Lichi. Her portrayal of a overwhelmed young girl who happens to be nearly exactly exactly what she appears is indeed practical which you root on her behalf to leave of damage’s means. “Wife” begins by having an “admission” that the filmmakers paid to bring Lichi right here from Burma in substitution for the involvement of her groom-to-be, Adrian (Adrian Martinez) — an annoyed, frustrated doorman from Queens, that is literally and figuratively the movie’s heavy. Andrew is not the great man he seems to be as he consumes Lichi after she turns up at their apartment by having a porn video clip Adrian manufactured from her. Although she is demonstrably susceptible in her troubled state, Andrew rests together with her whenever his girlfriend is not around. It has to become a jab at documentary filmmakers whom become actually active in the life of these topics. “Mail Order Wife” is shot to appear as though Andrew does not know very well what he is doing. It is like a property film, grainy and away from focus. Presumably this is certainly the main laugh; you are never ever certain plays a part in the movie’s unsettling effect. At a few junctures, including whenever Adrian will not be interviewed anymore, Andrew ponders whether or not to carry on. But he does, and Jose Canseco even plays along. Creating a cameo appearance, he lends their yacht included in a campaign to wow Lichi. Besides being perennially prepared for their close-up, Canseco probably had been seduced to stay the movie by Adrian’s effusive praise of him while the most useful baseball player ever. Remember “Mail Order Wife” is just a mockumentary.
This periodically amusing comedy is obviously attempting to follow within the footsteps of Christopher Guest, whoever successful “mockumentaries” “Waiting for Guffman” and “A Mighty Wind” are making the format stylish.
There are a few guidelines at your workplace right here, but “Mail purchase Wife” can’t determine be it making fun of documentary filmmaking, “green-card” based marriages or desperately lonely males.
The movie’s name relates to Lichi (Eugenia Yuan), a Burmese girl that is hoping getting her U.S. citizenship through a married relationship “arrangement.” So she actually is decided to marry Adrian (Adrian Martinez), a brand new York resort doorman who’s gotn’t possessed a complete large amount of fortune with ladies.
Unfortuitously, the 2 are not very suitable; for starters, she is horrified by their concept of “cuisine.” As soon as Adrian begins steering their conversations towards the topic of young ones, Lichi balks.
Further complicating issues may be the presence that is constant of (Andrew Gurland, certainly one of this movie’s two directors), a documentary filmmaker who is been interviewing the 2. He falls for Lichi and additionally proposes to her.
Touch upon this tale From the plus side, the movie does not develop into the straight-forward intimate comedy it may are becoming and alternatively goes down in a direction that is completely different. Which will be smart because none associated with the three characters is extremely likable or sympathetic. In specific, Martinez’s portly suitor comes down as grotesquely cartoonish, and, as played by Yuan, Lichi is not appealing wedding product.
Even even Worse, the movie’s jokes just aren’t that funny (such as the Canseco cameo). And jabs in the quite males that are pathetic the movie are way too mean-spirited.
“Mail Order Wife” is rated R for crude humor about and recommendations to intimate functions, periodic usage of strong profanity that is sexual some intimate content, violence (mostly slapstick) and employ of racial epithets. Operating time: 91 mins.
