'Spying' "Brothers"

On the set with Jim Sheridan and Tobey Maguire in Los Alamos, New Mexico (February 9th 2008).

"Jeff Wells has put together his Oscar balloon and has mentions for the film and the boys - Jake and Tobey. Wipe away those tears because Fanatical found a nice breakdown from a screening, which paints Natalie's performance in a really good light.

Someone called Brothers Spy spoke to an IMDB poster that had attended a screening for the film. The IMDB poster told him this:

"Jim Sheridan was there, he actually sat behind me during the audience feedback session. I got the impression from his reactions that he wasn't entirely happy with the way the film has turned out thus far, but i'm just guessing. I saw the other producers there, but none were recognizable. This was the first screening. The questions being asked led me to believe the producers saw this film as being in good shape. They said that the release date of the film was December 4th. I heard from 19 other test audience members who were much more positive in their praise for the film than I was. They seemed to really enjoy it. None of them, however, had seen the original film and none were very familiar with film in general. I believe I suffer a slight bias due to my appreciation of the original film, but only a slight one. My major issues with the film are the scenes of brutality that feel very toned down from the original version. I have many complaints, but that is my main one."

Brothers Spy spoke to him again and got some more details about the performances, and this is Brothers Spy relating what he had been told:

Nearly everyone in attendance, including the guy I spoke to, loved Jake and Natalie's characters and their performances. In fact, everyone loved that storyline the best. The crowd was about evenly divided on Tobey and his character. The guy said that Tobey starts very weak, but finishes strong. As for Jake and Natalie, they have A LOT of chemistry together. There's a lot of sexual/romantic tension between their characters which is both very believable and palpable.

Everyone, except my guy, said they would recommend the film to their friends. The film got an average of 4 votes out of 5, on those questionaires they hand out. Jake and Natalie got 5 out of 5 by 17 out of the 19 people who stayed behind. Tobey however got an average of 3/5.

The only two things people seemed not to like were: Tobey's unsympathetic character and they didn't like the beginning or the ending which has some narration apparently (neither the original film nor the adapted script had this).

As for the guy's personal opinion, the script, he believes, was the weakest part of the whole thing. He says, despite a couple of differences from the original film, it's pretty much a straight forward adaptation. Yet the original film was written in 2002, before Iraq. But this films takes place in 2007, yet Iraq is never mentioned which he find weird".
Thanks to : Fanatical
By dazza on Friday, Sep 26th at 13:21

Source: www.natalieportman.com