Not Since You (2009)

Overrated

Admirable film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

An entertaining soundtrack running pleasantly under a melodramatic knockoff of The Big Chill. Not Since You is an over wrought script that is excruciatingly over-acted. The movie is populated by many pretty people, at a wedding that has even more pretty people attending, with stately houses, a Norman Rockwell town, and vacation scenery. Your cup will over flow with pretty people. Your cup will also over flow with melodrama, as an ensemble of actors are forced to make hopeful, painful, and glum faces over decades old interactions that supposedly remained unsettled. No worries, the script makes sure that every loose end is tied up, every emotional problem is resolved, and everyone either remains, or becomes, happily coupled. Whatever hope you might have when the soundtrack begins to play upon your emotions will be stifled, prepare to be smothered in a bath of emotional spaghetti. i've yearned for another generations The Big Chill. I didn't get my own generations and perhaps its too much to ask. Do not ask it of this dreadful movie.

This movie is so bad that I made an IMDb account just to warn poor, romantic-comedy- seekers like myself. Do not watch this movie expecting anything fun, funny, or even remotely entertaining. The plot is so predictable my pet lizard wasn't even surprised by the conflicts or plot turns. The acting is stiff and muted, like one is watching cardboard cut outs of the actors slowly soak up rainwater and crumble in on themselves. The tortured jilted lover character talks like he has kidney stones causing him acute pain, but has recently taken and is already feeling the slowing and slurring effects of a very potent narcotic. There is no character development, and the references to 9/11 are tawdry, cheap ploys for emotion. This may well be the worst movie I've ever seen. I can never get that time back. I would have been better off spending my hour and change collecting roadkill to taxidermy. It certainly would have been more rewarding, and left me with less of a disgusted after taste. Long story short; skip this utter waste of time, space, and money.

The beginning shows several friends from the prestigious NYU before, during, and post their graduation during 2001 and the beginning credits. After that ends, it shows all of those friends, within other people during that friendship, or alone, after that graduation. Ashely and Daniel, two in the group are to be married in Georgia on Ashley's grandfather's plantation. The friends all rally around them and decide to go. The movie has multiple story lines all going on at once which is confusing but quite fun at the same time.Howard and Billy were best friends, and Billy is seriously dating Victoria. Victoria and Howard have history, and Billy actually basically "stole her away" from Howard in his eyes. Billy wants to marry Victoria, but he wants Howard's approval before proposing to her. The tension between them is bitter to the point where there is no talking between the two guys. Billy has a company he is seeking investors for, and you see him fumble for these investors during the entire weekend.Author Sarah, known as Doogs, is a sweet, Southern children's book author who is still a virgin and plans on saving herself for marriage. However, when running into classmate Joey, known as Fudge, she has second thoughts on her initial plan. The two go all around the little town around the plantation, and you see their relationship bloom.Sam, an old friend who fell of the grid for traveling, shows up to the wedding unexpectedly. Sam sees an old lover of sorts, Amy, and finds out that she is married to Ryan, a quiet guy that's very protective. Throughout, you see the two pick up, fall down, and see Ryan get involved.Cute, is the word I would use for this movie. It is just a nice rom. com. and I enjoyed it a lot. Totally recommend, and a great girls night movie, if put into a sub-category.

There are 10 significant characters in this film. Only 4 of them have anything resembling a distinct personality. There are two separate love triangles on display. Both require the people involved to be stupid while one begins and the other ends with wildly abrupt emotional transformations. There are so many musical interludes slapping you in the face that the viewer eventually becomes numb to them all. There's a character who receives a revelation about his life from staring at fireflies. In case I'm being too subtle, Not Since You is written with all the depth and intelligence of a TV ad for your local chiropractor.8 people who were friends in New York City in the summer of 2001 reunite years later in Georgia when one of them gets married. There's Sam (Desmond Harrington), an aspiring writer who looks like a grim-faced male model. Back in the day, Sam was in love with Amy (Kathleen Robertson). Why? Who knows? This movie never bothers to explain or justify any of the relationships that exist in this story. On arriving for the wedding, Sam learns that Amy has been married for years to the Fabio-haired Ryan (Christian Kane) but even though the two ex-lovers haven't seen or spoken to each other for the better part of a decade, they're instantly consumed with pathetically obvious longing for each other. The conflict between that and Amy's marriage is the heart of Not Since You, but the possibility of two non-entities breaking the heart of a third is not the kind thing to keep you on the edge of your seat.Then there's Howard (Jon Abrahams), an annoyingly aggressive entrepreneur who's still seething over his ex-girlfriend Victoria (Sunny Mabrey) leaving him for his best friend Billy (Will Estes). Victoria wants to get married but Billy is afraid that will just hurt Howard even more. Howard's bad feelings have stewed for years until he can barely contain them so, of course, his wounded ego is eventually healed after a 30 second conversation with Victoria. Now, Victoria spends the whole frickin' film demanding that Billy patch things up with Howard, but apparently she never bothered talking to him herself. Why? Who knows?The two remaining friends, Joey and Sarah (Elden Hanson and Sara Rue), get smushed together in an infatuation that helps to heal Joey's feelings of 9/11 survivor's guilt. That storyline actually works much better on screen than my description suggests, but it's still lacking even the most basic sort of grounding or detail, like why Joey and Sarah never hooked up when they were in New York.Oh, and Barry Corbin wanders through the film acting all Southern and stuff.Kathleen Robertson is a stunning beauty and she and the rest of the cast certainly seem like capable performers. However, they're given roles to play that are so plain and thin they're virtually non-existent. Not Since You is all about 8 friends but it gives no indication of why these people were ever friends or what their friendships were like. You can tell these actors are trying to play these parts as real and believable as they can. They've just got nothing onto which they can grab.Co-writer/Director Jeff Stephenson does a simplistic, though ultimately adequate job of juggling these multiple plot lines. The scenes look okay for the most part and things unfold in an understandable manner. He never does anything as a director, though, to overcome the vacuous and sketchy script he helped write.If you haven't figured it out, this is an attempt at doing 21st century version of The Big Chill. That there's nothing of style of substance here to define whether this generational tale is about Gen X, Gen Y or the Millennials kind of encapsulates the shallow failure of this motion picture. Three people wrote this screenplay but there needed to be a fourth to come in and fill up all the empty spaces in this story and these characters. Lacking that, Not Since you does not need to be watched.