Unfortunately, filmmakers use a fake documentary style to tell the story -- and that doesn’t work well here. Don’t expect anything close to a Christopher Guest mockumentary like Best in Show or Waiting for Guffman.
Upon first meeting the characters, we feel something really funny will soon be happening during the film. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the players comes across as a one-note stereotype with the same type of behavior going on in practically every scene. It’s not long before they all become irritating instead of amusing.
Granted, Chris Klein (Election) maintains an endearing quality the longest. He portrays Henry, the “documentary” narrator who’s very serious about his writing. Too bad he develops a crush on cutie pie Hannah (Kaley Cuoco/Picture Perfect), the lucky group member with an agent. Still, we can’t help hoping Henry will win this girl, even though she’s a manipulator and not nearly as innocent or dumb as she wants everyone to believe. Hannah says she doesn’t have a favorite author, doesn't recognize a metaphor, can’t think of Jane Austen’s last name and depends on her mother to answer these “hard” questions for her.
The other members of the group include: Alan Mooney (Dylan Walsh/The Stepfather), who started the group to make his snobbish wife Colette (Teri Polo/Meet theParents) happy; William Bruce (Jonathan Bennett/Mean Girls), a lazy Charles Bukowski fan; and John K. Butzin (Dennis Farina/Big Trouble), who thinks he’s the next Tom Clancy.
Directed by Ellie Kanner (For the Love of Money) from a screenplay by David Congalton, Authors Anonymous contains a couple of humorous scenes involving the character played by the late great Dennis Farina as he explores self-publishing, ebooks, and book signings. Because I’m also an author, that part of the film definitely rang a bell with me -- and made me laugh. However, I’m very disappointed about the failure of this movie to live up to the full potential of its original concept.
(Released by Screen Media Films and rated “PG-13” for some suggestive material.)
Review also posted at ReelTalk Movie Reviews.
In my brief encounter with other authors, I find there tends to be two types: the first type has a major issue in their life that they have to relate. They think that everyone needs to know about their experience and can learn from it. They are disappointed when their stories don't sell. The second type are authors that are writing because they are writers. As writers, they believe what they are writing is very good and should be read by all. They tend to have big egos and defend their writing strongly, whether it is good or bad. They make bad company in writers' groups because they would rather fight than cooperate. As far as the first group, they are very bad in writers' groups because they have only one thing to write about. The only writer's group that I would join would be one where everyone in the group would work very hard to improve each other. I haven't found that group yet.
Ron