Movie Breakdown: Submission (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

A Stanley Tucci flick about a professor who sleeps with a student. Scandal arises. I’m yawning already.

Post-Screening Ramble:

I can’t really say why Submission was made. It offers nothing new, no standout performances, not even a convincing amount of lascivious dialogue or visuals to spice things up. It is, quite frankly, a film that has been done, better, before. Stanley Tucci plays a slightly failed novelist who burned fast but bright and is now a creative writing teacher at a small school in Vermont. He’s spinning his wheels, but happily, with a wife (Kyra Sedgwick) who he seemingly loves and a daughter (Colby Minfie) he no longer talk to. Angela Argo (Addison Timlin) is a talented (maybe?) student of his whose work captivates him to the point of an aborted sexual tryst. Things do not go well. That’s pretty much the story and pretty much the film. Tucci does good, warm work as Ted Swenson, but he isn’t given much to do but seem sort of uncomfortably aroused and then even more uncomfortably accused. Argo gets worse treatment, as her character bounces from damaged to manipulative to blankly sensual with little to no explanation. And that’s really all there is to say about the film. It starts, proceeds and ends exactly as one would think with nary a bump of spontaneous narrative development to shake the pot. Submission isn’t bad per say, it’s just entirely boring.

One Last Thought:

I never want to see Stanley Tucci make out with a student ever again.