Jack in Love

Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is in his mid-forties, single and a chauffeur at his uncle's small limo rental company. He leads a quiet, unspectacular life with few real goals to chase. But that might change when his best friend Clyde (John Ortiz) and his wife Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega) try to set him up with Lucy's co-worker Connie (Amy Ryan). Because although the first meeting goes a little awkwardly, there seems to be chemistry between maverick Jack and overprotective Connie, and they even arrange to go boating together in Central Park. Lucky for them it's still winter and Jack has a few months before he gets to row Connie across the lake. Because Jack doesn't know how to swim and now has to learn with the help of Clyde. But the coming weeks hold one or two not always pleasant surprises for all involved.

With "Jack in Love" Philip Seymour Hoffman joins the ranks of actors who also try their luck as directors. The fact that the film adaptation of a small off-Broadway play by Bob Glaudini is Hoffman's debut is already very obvious in the film. Hoffman tries too hard to make sure that his characters are endearingly quirky and that the quiet humor of his production is Arthouse-worthy. The production simply lacks a certain lightness of touch that a story like this, however, desperately needed.

The slowly budding love between Jack and Connie is already charmingly portrayed. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan believably convey why these two characters, for all their quirks and mental baggage, fit so well together and would be very good for each other as well. However, both the characters and their conflicts as a whole seem too artificial to offer the viewer anything like a surface for identification. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of beautiful, engaging, and also very funny moments. But Hoffman, who previously directed the LAByrinth Theater Company on and off for nearly a decade, has simply let his work for the theater guide him too much and not enough of his experience. On stage, the story may work really well. In cinema, on the other hand, it somehow seems out of place.

So in the end, "Jack in Love", while undoubtedly a likeable little film, is also kind of an odd one, with the good intentions of its makers and actors omnipresent, but ultimately failing because of the lofty ambitions of its director and lead actor. Those who like small, somewhat quirky contributions to American independent cinema will certainly get their money's worth. However, the feeling that more could have been made of this story remains

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp