A tremendously inventive and ironic big-city-office dark comedy, the sardonic but whimsical Waydowntown offers a sign of the times in contemporary workaholic Western society. Revolving around a quartet of friendly but ruthless office rivals who all live and work in an interconnected, high-rise office-mall-apartment complex, the movie begins a few weeks into a bet they've made to see who can stay sane the longest without setting foot outside--and every one of them is about to crack. Written and directed by creative, cutting-edge Canadian filmmaker Gary Burns (The Suburbanators), the energetic, quick-cut, semi-linear story is sardonically funny, charismatic, imaginatively cool, and winsomely kinetic. Reminiscent of Trainspotting, Run Lola Run, Office Space, and Being John Malkovich, it ranks alongside those films as a defining entry in the emerging school of smart, avant garde cinema that may have been born of music video, but has creatively matured and surpassed its MTV origins thanks to a bevy of young directors' unbridled magic-carpet minds. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette (9 min.), and a trailer. Bottom line: a disappointingly small extras package for a winning film.] (R. Blackwelder)
Waydowntown
Home Vision, 83 min., not rated, DVD: $24.95, Mar. 15 Volume 20, Issue 2
Waydowntown
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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