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Deja VuRating:
Release Date: 03 September, 2002 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
Deja Vu Reviews
We should all be so lucky
I love this film and have seen it many times. It has lines in it I've never heard before in any love story, though I've had this wonderful soul-mate experience myself and know the words by heart. It's the language of the soul that's captured here, and I think the characters reflect this soul-mate understanding perfectly, at least in the major love scenes between the lovely Victoria Foyt and the excellent Stephen Dillane. This makes it difficult for me to imagine anyone else in the lead role other than Ms. Foyt.
In fact, the movie would never have come into being without her and she deserves ample credit: she wrote it with her husband, who happens to be the love of her life, and vice versa, if their commentary is to be believed in the special features section... The relationship between Foyt and Jaglom was fated, as she was married to someone else at the time she met him, and consequently they both sacrificed everything to be together - and so far, it's worked out personally and creatively for both of them, including their two young and lovely children. Now what other actress could have stepped in and played her role with more insight, conviction and understanding? Keira Knightley? Hmmm.
What some viewers lament as her constant "whining," I see as a reflection of the type of woman she is: feminine, vulnerable, emotional, and deeply upset and confused by this sudden turn of events with someone from out of the blue just when her conventional life was about to fall into place with her fiance. She's shaken by this and it comes out in her voice. What's happening to her is beyond her understanding at the time.
Speaking as a man, I love Victoria Foyt's maturity, being an older but hardly an old woman, and her classic beauty, and I particularly love her words in her last major love scene with her soul-mate. (I won't spoil the beautiful exchange by revealing it here.) For what I look for in a woman, she has feminine appeal in the way she's in conflict with herself, and she has feminine appeal in her emotionally vulnerability and the way she expresses herself when she surrenders to her lover and decides to give into having a life with him. I like it, I like it, I like it, because she's lived enough to have some depth of feeling, and appreciates it, because it comes later in life, though that's not explicitly stated in the movie. She also knows how to kiss and use her hands to express her emotions, which I love in a woman. I would find it hard to throw a woman of this classic beauty and emotional vulnerabity out of bed should I ever be lucky enough to have this soul-mate experience again.
This romantic "fantasy" is perhaps my favorite movie about fate, destiny and life's unexpected possibilities - ones that keep you hanging onto life and expecting the next great adventure right around the corner, including non-romantic ones. Whether it's a perfect movie or not is a moot point for me because what movie could ever exactly capture the real thing?... that special something so overpowering in its magnetic attraction between two people that they can only say `yes' to it no matter whatever else is happening in their lives. While it can turn lives upside down, and sometimes ends up being only an illusion, it may be the ultimate act of self-discovery that was part of their life's plan from the beginning, and this movie explores this gossamer line between fantasy and reality.
I think the movie may also have another message: that sometimes you have to say 'no' to someone when you painfully realize that person isn't right for you, and only then is there room for the person you were destined to be with.
WHAT ABOUT THE SPECIAL COMMENTARY?
For many reasons, I liked "Deja Vu" and many of those appear in other reviews. But no one here seems to have mentioned and reviewed the special commentary by Henry Jaglom (Director)and Victoria Foyt (star actress) in the DVD. That is worth seeing because it is like having a second, complete film in itself.
Clearly, Jaglom and Foyt are very much in love, and to some extent "Deja Vu" is about them. At one point, Jaglom tells how he first met Foyt -- on the telephone -- and although each had other commitments and responsibilties, each of them realized the other to be the love of their lives. But most of the commentary was a lovingly executed version of artistic arguing about how the film was made and the concepts in it. I've been a serious film buff for years, yet learned a lot about acting and filmmaking from the commentary.
In the middle Henry asks Victoria does she think someone is watching the commentary before having seen the movie. Then he scolds the audience for this and insists they STOP immediately and see the the movie first.
Both the movie and commentary are fantastic, great entertainment (and even -- God forbid -- educational). The DVD goes beyond just the film "Deja Vu" and is worth buying just for the commentary.
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