Rating: R
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 10/08/2002
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DDS
Run Time: 96 min
Distributor/Studio: Miramax
A disparate posse of friends reconvenes in a suburb of Chicago for a high-school reunion in this ensemble
comedy. Ten years after getting beaten up on graduation day by a classmate (
Tom Hodges),
Dr. Kevin MacEldowney (
Philip Rayburn Smith) dreads his class reunion. On hand to bolster his sense of self-worth are wife
Mollie (
Joy Gregory) and best friend
Zane Levy (
Joey Slotnick).
Zane has problems of his own: he wrote a hit song but watched another artist take a tarted-up version of it to the top of the charts. As the reunion progresses, he gets to hear it sung by any number of fellow alumni, from Euro-poseur
Maria Goldstein (
Teri Hatcher) and self-help guru
Holly Petuto (
Heidi Stillman) to psycho joker
Grace Williams (
Lara Flynn Boyle) and smug class president
Robert S. Levitt (
David Schwimmer). As these and other characters reconnect after a decade, they experience a familiar series of liaisons, revelations, and conflicts -- but rarely in a very straightforward manner. Originally filmed for television,
Since You've Been Gone was directed by
David Schwimmer, whose
Friends castmate
Lisa Kudrow starred in the similarly conceived
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
Rachel Griffiths,
Molly Ringwald,
Liev Schreiber,
Jennifer Grey,
Jerry Springer, and
Marisa Tomei all contribute brief comedic cameos.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Though it treads familiar ground plot-wise, this low-key
comedy offers a likable cast of talented unknowns and an engaging mixture of high and low
comedy.
Sitcom star
David Schwimmer, branching out into directing, plays a nasty pathos-free variation on his signature
Friends role, but shows a steady hand behind the camera. Juggling more than a dozen characters and deftly juxtaposing their misadventures at a high-school reunion,
Schwimmer keeps things moving fast enough that the material's essential weightlessness becomes irrelevant. Some of the comedic performances fire on more cylinders than others, notably
Lara Flynn Boyle's part as a vicious practical joker and
Heidi Stillman as a self-congratulatory, self-help guru. The bawdy set pieces aren't always as fresh or as funny as they'd like to be, but the script usually returns to its strong suit: humor rooted in character.
Philip Rayburn Smith and
Joy Gregory make appealing romantic protagonists, while
Joey Slotnick belies clichés as their not-so-token gay friend.
Since You've Been Gone is hardly an important film, but its black humor is far quirkier -- and its unsentimental introspection is far more convincing than the initial premise would seem to promise.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
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