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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
MILK AND HONEY
Rick (Clint Jordan), having just returned from a mental institution,
re-proposes to his wife Joyce (Kirsten Russell) at his welcome back party. After Joyce rejects his proposal, everyone else makes a silent exit. In private, after she rejects his proposal
yet again, Rick makes a loud exit. He visits a recent girlfriend and then his
psychiatrist before embarking on a journey of self-realization. Joyce takes
to the streets in search of her not-so-stable husband and falls into an
emotional whirlwind of her own.
Milk and Honey relies a lot on coincidence. Flashbacks
reveal that over the past few weeks both Rick and Joyce have
separately encountered the same random New York City apartment as well as
come in contact with
Moses Jackson (Dudley Findlay, Jr.), a well-to-do crime-scene cleaner with a dying
mother. If there were only one pivotal coincidence in the film, it might seem
believable. But twists of fate are so abundant here that it is simply
ridiculous when Rick eventually winds up in the same hospital (the same
hallway no less) as Moses' ailing mother. Like in many instances,
this is a moment of drama that plays comedically. Luckily for director Joe
Maggio, most of the intended comedic elements work because the events that
take place over this one night are quirky and highly ludicrous. The
constant teeter between comedy and drama, however, is ultimately aggravating.
Selfish
acts from both Rick and Joyce provide the viewer with no reason to sympathize with
this pair of overprivileged New Yorkers. Rick wishes death upon himself as
he walks the streets with a $50,000 ring in his pocket. Joyce
takes a shower in her lavish apartment to erase the filth from a regrettable
one-night stand. These two are so unjustifiably self-pitying that one can
only look on from the outside and be thankful that they're stuck with each
other. Michael Belkewitch
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