Review: Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey Diddle Diddle

OPENING: 2009

STUDIO: Dream Factory

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
Where is Mad Max?

Opening Statement
Hey Diddle Diddle is a film with a respectable premise and a sympathetic central character. I liked Maxwell Sweetwater, and I wanted to like the film. I want to be supportive of small independent films with as much tenderness and humanity as this one. Unfortunately, I just can’t be too supportive in this case. The execution is amateurish, the performances are awkward, and the film is plagued by distracting supporting elements.

Facts of the Case
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, Maxwell Sweetwater (Chester Jones III) was an incredibly successful guy. Once upon a time, Maxwell Sweetwater was an ambitious superstar. Once upon a time, Maxwell Sweetwater was the most popular kid in his high school. That time has passed, and Maxwell Sweetwater has slipped into depression and loneliness. He is no longer “Mad Max,” the dashing and mysterious king of the high school. Now he’s just Max, an overweight slob with no ambition and an abundance of social paranoia. What happened to Max? It’s hard to say for sure, but he obviously needs help.

When Max hears that his high school graduating class is going to be holding a 10th Anniversary Reunion, he immediately declares that he has no interest in going. He simply can’t face the past. It’s too difficult, too frightening. After all, what will everyone think when they discover that he hasn’t done anything with his life? He knows that everything will turn out terribly if he attends. Max’s therapist doesn’t think so. She says that Max needs to go to the reunion. She thinks it will be a great way for Max to confront his past and move on to the next stage of life. After a little bit of encouragement from his close friends Alex (Alex C. Ferrill) and Julian (David Roberts), Max reluctantly agrees to attend. What will happen when “Mad Max” re-emerges?

The Evidence
They say that a large part of acting is reacting. Most of the actors in this film do not know how to react. They deliver their lines, and then stand their with baited breath, obviously running their next piece of dialogue through their mind and waiting to spew it out when the right moment arrives. This produces conversational scenes that feel staged and artificial, and a movie that feels more like a dress rehearsal than a final performance. The scenes can’t seem to pinpoint a specific tone. There are moments that veer recklessly from drama to comedy to drama without sufficient reason. The film becomes a bit painful to watch during these moments.

Have you ever seen a film with performances so bad that you just feel kind of embarrassed for the actors? Hey Diddle Diddle has a few. The worst offender is Aimee Cucchiara, who plays the wonderfully-named Solyange Cluey. Ms. Cluey is one of the most poorly-written characters I have seen in a film recently. She is the fiancée of Alex, and her scenes with him made me cringe. Her character is best described as a vindictive, sweet-natured, mentally troubled fortune teller. I’ll leave it at that.

Another distracting element is the synthesized original score, which is both obtrusive and heavy-handed. There are numerous dialogue scenes that should have remained free of music, but the score insists on hammering home the emotions. In fact, there is one moment towards the end where the score employs some sort of foghorn effort that becomes unintentionally amusing. Beyond the purely technical elements, I frankly found some of the film’s messages to be a bit shallow and misguided. Why is everyone attempting to convince Max that he is precisely the same person he was in high school when he’s obviously not? Why should his goal be to become that person? Change isn’t a bad thing, but the movie seems to wholeheartedly approve of attempting to live in the past.

Closing Statement
Hey Diddle Diddle is well-intentioned and not a complete disaster. I liked the performance of co-director/producer Chester Jones III as Maxwell, the one honest and believable character in the film. I know a guy who is like Maxwell in a lot of ways, and there were moments here that really mirrored things I had seen firsthand. But it’s not enough. The film is barely tolerable, much less worth recommending. It can’t be redeemed, but with some ruthless editing and a less intrusive original score, I think it could be improved considerably. A very disappointing little film.

The Verdict
3/10

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