Submission [Blu-ray]

This is a suspense film. As such you know that something is going to be doomed. But the film is quite realistic not David Mamet manicky. The acting was excellent and provided the necessary suspension of disbelief. Unlike most suspense disaster films, this had a good conclusion. It's good to see alone or with someone else.

Good Movie

Ted Swenson (Stanley Tucci) wrote a moderately successful novel ten years ago and has written nothing since. His second novel is a “slow process” that seems to go nowhere, and so he’s settled into his life as a Creative Writing professor at the (fictional) Euston College in Vermont, while avoiding phone calls from his editor (Peter Gallagher). He leads a quiet life with his wife (Kyra Sedgwick) and his close friends and colleagues (Janeane Garofalo). What more could he ask for? His writing class consists of pretentious students who seize the opportunity to criticize each other’s work, until Angela Argo (Addison Timlin) comes along. She’s not your typical student. Her writing is titillating. The more Ted reads bits and pieces of Angela’s erotic novel, the more she intrigues him. Her novel is about a student who falls for her teacher, and he can’t help imagining himself as the teacher. But nothing is as it seems. Turns out Angela wants more than just his feedback. She wants more — way more.This is the kind of story I love. Stories about writing and books move me in more ways than one. I’m a writer, and I identify with these characters. I never read the novel they base this movie on, but I wish I had. There’s a great deal of depth and nuances in this story, and I’m sure that the novel has those in spades. Tucci is wonderful as the introvert author with writer’s block. His character roles limit him, putting him as the husband or father (JULIE AND JULIA, EASY A), eccentric sideplayer (THE HUNGER GAMES), co-worker (THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA), and so on. He is such an amazing actor. His portrayal of a psychopath in THE LOVELY BONES was bone-chilling, and I knew he’d be great in a starring role. He’s had a few, but this is the one where he shines as the big name that carries this film. Timlin is also great as the passionate student with a secret agenda. Her manipulation is subtle and obvious at the same time. What do I mean? You’d have to watch the movie. Great film! Downsides? It’s rushed at the end. We get little information on the characters. I recommend this, now available on Starz. This is up there with other movies about novels and writers I love, like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, THE WORDS, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and STUCK IN LOVE. Four out of five Honey and Almond lattes.

As the movie opens, Stanley Tucci, as Ted Swenson, a 49 year old English Literature professor, and narrator of the film, gives you the answer to the question, "Why would a guy with a pretty great life do something so stupid.?"He wrote a moderately successful, critically praised novel ten years earlier, and it became the standard to judge all things by.He acknowledges he is well paid, and despite being around for 200 years, the absolutely charming surroundings are a part of a second tier institution he considers an outpost in Vermont.Sherrie, played by Kyra Sedgwick, is his gorgeous, smart, supportive wife, and she and Tucci don't look like they have too much trouble with on screen chemistry.I've heard the book is excellent and Tucci's character, Professor Swenson, is seduced much more slowly by the student with an agenda, Angela Argo, played by Addison Timlin.I've started noticing more and more, what seems to be filmmakers succumbing to pressure, keeping movies at about an hour and a half because of belief in our shrinking attention spans.A great cast can make an acceptable script into a pretty good movie, like this one.But an audience feels the lack of confidence, vaguely dissatisfied that a great cast was not allowed to flesh out the characters and the story, giving the audience the chance to see their complexities and a slow, treacherous web of seduction that would be more satisfying, especially for a man who understands all too well the ruin it would cause.The entire cast is good, the direction is very good, nothing left a big hole. It was enjoyable, but it was just good.I think Angela proves she is capable of expert treachery to get what she wants, and I think it would have added the much needed dimension to the characters, with actors that were certainly up to the task.The audience needs to see the complexity of the characters and either love, hate, or better, both, to care enough to feel anything, far less the emotional impact a story like this would have greatly benefitted from.

Stanley Tucci is always a pleasure, in big movies or little indie things. Here he pretty much carries the weight of a bad scenario on his two shoulders. He's a failing novelist who teaches writing at a small New England college. A student tries to maneuver herself into a position of power and literary-agent availability by claiming the professor made sexual advances on her. The script could only work as a very subtle comedy, but it's here played as thin tragidrama.

I did not like the way the films assumes the so-called victim is always right. She set him up. Obviously she believed the only way to get published is to lure someone to destruction. It also says something about our culture today and that the written word and writers are the standard bearers for the written word. It made me think of another film, "Can You Ever Forgive Me," when Lee Isreal says it was from another time when the written word meant something. Now this film reflects the death, the long death knell of great authorship and the literary word. Writing does not seem to mean much anymore. That young woman set him up. And if I had been Stanley Tucci, I would have fought that. Critically speaking, Tucci has done much better. His past film roles like "The Lovely Bones," were fantastic. I remember him as Puck in "A Midsummer's Night Tale,' or even "Ghostbusters 2" were much better than this. I really hope the parts are not drying up for you, Stan.

Stanley Tucci is absolutely superb in 'Submission'. Worth watching for his sensitive, skillful portrayal of a college tutor tempted by a manipulative teenage student.

Unable to view DVD. Appears to be on a format that is not compatible with UK viewing platforms. Error message on DVD homepage suggested issues the minute loaded into player. But for for low price, would have sought refund.