Second Best PG-13
Losing sucks, but it doesn't necessarily kill you
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DVD Details
- Rated: PG-13
- Run Time: 1 hours, 26 minutes
- Video: Color
- Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
- Released: November 15, 2005
- Originally Released: 2004
- Label: Velocity / Thinkfilm
Performers, Cast and Crew:
Starring | Joe Pantoliano, Jennifer Tilly, Boyd Gaines, Bronson Pinchot, Barbara Barrie & Polly Draper | |
Performer: | Peter Gerety, Paulina Porizkova & Matthew Arkin | |
Directed by | Eric Weber | |
Edited by | Edward T. McDougal | |
Screenwriting by | Eric Weber | |
Produced by | Callum Greene, Anthony Katagas & Joe Pantoliano | |
Director of Photography: | Chris Norr | |
Executive Production by | Paul Mayersohn |
Entertainment Reviews:
Rating: 1.5/4 --
Curiously, watching the unseemly-looking and self-obsessed Second Best is not unlike being trapped in an abusive relationship.
Full Review
Slant Magazine
Rating: 3/4 --
Eric Weber's spot on character study of the restless and down trodden white America male is a bit of bittersweet magic.
Full Review
Entertainment Insiders
Rating: 2/4 --
Though the essays are smartly written and Pantoliano manages to make Elliot vaguely sympathetic, Second Best is a long slog in the dumps.
New York Daily News
Second Best tries too hard for sincerity, when it's actually more sincere when cynical.
Full Review
L.A. Weekly
Rating: 3/5 --
An embittered writer's movie about the coruscating damage of jealousy and the impossibility of finding nobility in failure
Filmcritic.com
Rating: 1/4 --
A sour and pointless exercise.
New York Post
Rating: 2/5 --
Weber's losers really are losers -- envious, spiteful, complacent, mean-spirited and ultimately boring malcontents pickled in their own poison, and they drag his film down with them.
Full Review
TV Guide
Product Description:
Set in a dull New Jersey town, this melancholic comedy from director Eric Weber follows in the tradition of films such as SIDEWAYS and AMERICAN SPLENDOR by focusing on the mid-life doldrums of disgruntled white men. Self-proclaimed loser Elliot (Joe Pantoliano) has dreams of becoming a published author, but he suffers from serious emotional and professional stagnancy. His publishing goal might not be so farfetched if he spent half as much time pursuing it as he does complaining to anyone who will listen. Set on the notion that life has dealt him a bad hand, Elliot relentlessly burdens his neighbors and friends with confessional stories about the pains of feeling inadequate. In an effort to get his work out there, Elliot whittles his life's disappointments down to depressing one-page essays, which he signs The Biggest Loser. He pays a local high-school dropout to post the essays around the neighborhood once a week. Read aloud by Elliot, these defeatist columns form the film's narration. When his old pal Richard (Boyd Gaines), who left town and became a successful Hollywood film producer, comes back to visit, Elliot finds himself scrambling to make sense of his life. Richard's presence triggers something in Elliot, and unleashes a deep-seated jealousy that has been growing for years. Over the course of Richard's tumultuous visit, Elliot, Richard, and their friends are each forced to reexamine how they measure success. While Elliot is at times an unsympathetic and unlikable character, he is very realistic, and SECOND BEST, with its honest performances, is an unglamorized study of unrealized dreams.