Audrey Green and Lillian Wallace are two struggling performers, who have to fall back on acting in skits for corporations in dramatic presentations of human interactions related to sensitivity. The main problem with the film was that the both the skits and the actors performing them were not credible.
The motto for Audrey and Lillian is "everything we do is special." Unfortunately, the special nature of their partnership does not translate into high-caliber work. Lillian is the principal writer of the team, but it is clear that her scripts are dreadful. There were places in the film that were so bad that it was difficult to distinguish the spoken dialogue in the relationship of Audrey and Lillian as roommates from the scripted material coming from the pen of Lillian.
It was problematic that large corporations would even require the services of Audrey and Lillian. An HR department would simply draw upon its own personnel for skits of this nature, and the results would not have been any worse than the efforts of Audrey and Lillian.
Another downside of the film was the pacing with long, repetitive scenes and inconsequential subplots. The story of Piper the cat had no bearing on the film other than to make Audrey and Lillian appear as negligent pet owners when their cat jumped out the window of their high-rise apartment The personal trauma of Audrey, who suffers from depression, yet fails to take her meds, bogged down the film even more.
The brief romantic liaison between Audrey and Bradley, who quits his job to take care of Audrey, was another loose plot strand that stretched credibility to the breaking point. After they spend a night together, Audrey apparently dumps him with no explanation given! Another superfluous scene was when Audrey bursts in to the office of her agent, Pater Fielding, and "fires" him. Based on her abysmal track record in auditions, it was Fielding who should have removed Audrey from his client base. Audrey's failure as an actress cannot be blamed on her agent.
The film comes to a climax with the cliché scene of Audrey, Lillian, and young Fiona putting on a show for an audience of 300 employees of a corporation. The title of their playlet is "Leadership in Crisis and Times of Change." But the dialogue between Audrey and Lillian bore no resemblance to a real crisis in the workplace dealing with an employee's alcoholism. Instead, the self-indulgent skit was all about the personal relationship of Audrey and Lillian!
There were two conditions in which Audrey and Lillian were given the job of putting on their play: (1) there was to be no shattered glass during the performance, which would be a hazard in the workplace and (2) the ending could not be bleak. It turned out that Audrey shattered the class, and the lugubrious ending would have served the purposes of a grade-B horror film. If Audrey and Lillian are not paid for their efforts, one could only exclaim: Brava! The shabby careers of two talent-less women are given a showcase that i turns into a requiem at the end of this pretentious film.
Dim the Fluorescents
2017
Action / Comedy / Drama
Dim the Fluorescents
2017
Action / Comedy / Drama
Plot summary
A struggling actress and an aspiring playwright pour all of their creative energy into the only paying work they can find: role-playing demonstrations for corporate training seminars. When they book the biggest gig of their careers at a hotel conference, they commence work on their most ambitious production to date.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Audrey, Lillian, and Young Fiona Flop on the Stage!
A long wait for a surprising end
This movie had a far more interesting trailer than the movie proved to be. The file is just about 2 hours long, and the first 1 hour 40 of that is painful to watch. While the cinema work is pretty good, the acting is TERRIBLE. However, the ending scene, (about 12 - 15 minutes of the end of the movie) delivered a surprisingly spectacular performance. It's almost as if the entire rehearsal was focused on this scene alone, and the rest was podged together. These two leading role actresses suddenly surprise with an extremely well crafted performance. The down side is, it's too little too late. The editors should have taken a heavier hand to the scissor and cut a good 20 to 40 minutes of monotonous non-story advancement, non- character development. In the end I give it a 5, though if I could split the film score, then first hour and 40 minutes gets a 2, the final scene gets a 9.
What a waste of 2 hours
Such a disappointment. Unappealing characters, no development, stilted dialogue, awful direction and needed far more aggressive editing. Long panning shots of tall buildings; how fascinating! Ending completely predictable and boring. I'm sure the 2 leads will have long successful careers as tertiary quirky characters in straight to streaming films.