The Simian Line

2000

Drama / Romance

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 25% · 16 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 71% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.4/10 10 441 441

break-up prediction woman director

Director

Linda Yellen Photo
Linda Yellen

Top cast

Samantha Mathis Photo
Samantha Mathis as Mae
Eric Stoltz Photo
Eric Stoltz as Sam Donovan
Monica Keena Photo
Monica Keena as Marta
Harry Connick Jr. Photo
Harry Connick Jr. as Rick
480p.DVD
890.39 MB
716*480
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 40 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by dmasursky 6 / 10

A bit disappointing

It's not surprising that my expectations were a bit inflated with such a terrific cast of actors assembled, regardless of the story. I would say that the movie has some good moments, but overall, missed an opportunity and really should have been much better. There's some interesting themes introduced in the FIVE story lines/relationships that go mostly unexplored, and things are tied up quite neatly and abruptly at the end, which I found unsatisfying and frustrating. This film isn't a waste of time, but is likely to be enjoyed only if you approach it as the light fairytale that it is, and don't expect anything more.
Reviewed by bellino-angelo2014 4 / 10

Boring, confusing and lazily acted... nuff said

THE SIMIAN LINE kinda intrigued me for a while. It has a cast full of known names and yet so few reviews, so for me it could have been some sort of must-see. Well, I was wrong and after I finished it I could see why it has been forgotten.It begins during an Halloween party thrown by Katherine (Lynn Redgrave) when a psychic named Arnita (Tyne Daly) predicts that one of the couples at the party will break up by the end of the year, but nobody believes her. Arnita doesn't tell her that she can see a fourth couple, the ghosts of Mae and Edward (the late William Hurt). Days pass and Katherine becomes jealous of her lover's flirting with gorgeous neighbour Sandra (Cindy Crawford), and the lives of the other two couples are shown but at this point, who cares?In the beginning it looked ok, but as it progressed it took a detour to Stupidville and never went back. The acting was lazy, and only William Hurt and Eric Stoltz looked like they were trying, but all the others? They just went through the motions. Most of the characters were bland or annoying, and this is a major strike for any movie (not just this). The plot looked boring and I am amazed I didn't feel asleep during the viewing.Not a really bad movie but something close thanks to sloppy direction, lazy editing and hard to believe situations. Only of interest if you love to see beloved actors in low points of their careers.
Reviewed by secondtake 4 / 10

Misguided, miscast, badly directed, television styled movie for the biggish screen

The Simian Line (2000)There are attempts at stylizing, moments of humor, apparent insights into contemporary life in New York (and New Jersey), and a kind of cheap glamorizing of people who already very glamorous. There's a very starry cast (big names drop like snowflakes, and have has much resilience), but between a television kind of tawdry filmmaking, a stumbling overreaching plot, and just plain bad directorial decisions, it's pretty awful.In fact, the longer you watch it, the more you wonder at how so many people could have been involved in something that went so wrong. The director Linda Yellen is known for a line of increasingly awful television movies, poorly made and either sentimental or pushy. This is not officially made for t.v. but it has the same feel, with dissolves used for convenience rather than effect, with flat or bright lighting and still cameras, with actors who are determined to act normal, and normal is pretty dull when you take it literally. Some odd additions might not help--Harry Connick Jr., who is charming as a sit-com guest doesn't hold his own, and Cindy Crawford, who of course has mostly to look pretty, making you realize this is what most actresses do, and just as well.The music is sappy to boot. Which reminds you of all those movies who want to make you feel something by pulling all the right strings, but you end up resenting it because it's not the real deal. What's frustrating here most of all is a movie that wants to be deep, and which made such attempts to be deep, only forces you to react against it. If you do stick it out, you'll find a growing interlayering of lives, including a couple from the past (one of them a William Hurt with a horrendous southern accent) seen only by a mystic. And by the viewer. It's just not clever or interesting enough. Yes, the guys are buff, the women are charming, and life for regular very rich people who act very badly is the raw material for this really striving but impossibly flawed movie.
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