Julianne Nicholson, probably best known for her role as the hard-nosed, pixie-haired Detective Wheeler on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, is Nicole Reilly, a freckle-faced, devout Catholic New York transplant from Missoula. She has a drawer full of flannel pajamas, although she never wears them herself.
“I guess someone told my dad that girls liked flannel pajamas,” she explains to smooth-talking PR guy Stuart Sawyer (Weeds‘ Justin Kirk), “and nobody ever told him any different.” The exchange is just one small part of their courtship, an interesting moment in the relationship that the film chronicles, but is it the most important moment in the film?
No, not really. So why’s it called Flannel Pajamas? I don’t know – because Nicole and Stuart is a stupid name for a movie?
It’s one of the many ponderous aspects of the movie, an occasionally compelling romantic tragedy that somehow adds up to much, much less than the sum of it’s parts.
Writer/director Jeff Lipsky (Childhood’s End) takes us through all the major milestones of Nicole and Stuart’s doomed relationship—first date, their first time having sex, their first times spending the night at one another’s apartments, moving in together, the proposal, the wedding, the end of the honeymoon period, the arguments—while they increasingly struggle with whether or not they should be together.
It’s an awkward mixture of realistic and artificial, as it focuses on two very real, occasionally even unlikable protagonists, as they make their way through a pre-arranged obstacle course of melodramatic moments.
The result is the worst of both worlds, as the narrative seems to have lots of loose ends and jagged pieces that don’t fit together perfectly, just like the way real-life doesn’t usually make cinematic sense, but the events Lipsky focuses on are all chosen for their cinematic drama, betraying a manipulative, craftsman’s hands behind the unflattering verity.
While the overall film doesn’t quite work, both leads give fairly strong performances, and Lipsky’s unpredictability is a refreshing curative to too much Hollywood product.
Writer/director Jeff Lipsky will be at select screenings of Flannel Pajamas at the Drexel East Friday and Saturday, March 16 and 17. For more info, visit drexel.net or dial 231-9512.
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