Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (film)

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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Brief interviews poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Krasinski
Screenplay byJohn Krasinski
Based on Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
by David Foster Wallace
Produced byJohn Krasinski
Kevin Patrick Connors
Thomas Fatone
Chris Hayes
Starring Julianne Nicholson
Cinematography John Bailey
Edited byZene Baker
Rich Fox
Music by Billy Mohler
Nate Wood
Production
company
Distributed by IFC Films
Release date
  • January 19, 2009 (2009-01-19)(Sundance)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$27,935

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Krasinski, in his directorial debut. The film is based on short stories from the collection of the same name by David Foster Wallace.

Contents

Plot

Sara Quinn copes with a recent breakup by interviewing men as part of her graduate studies. Her intellectual endeavor has emotional consequences as the men’s twisted and revealing stories are juxtaposed against the backdrop of her own experience. As she begins to listen closely to the men around her, Sara must ultimately reconcile herself to the darkness that lies below the surface of human interactions.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in studios in Brooklyn, New York and exterior filming took place in Staten Island, New York, and on the campuses of Columbia University and Brooklyn College. [1]

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 40% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 5.0/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Ambitious but uneven, John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men tries hard but doesn't match the depth of the book." [2] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [3] The film was selected for the US Dramatic Competition in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Foster Wallace</span> American writer (1962–2008)

David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".

<i>Brief Interviews with Hideous Men</i> Short story collection by David Foster Wallace

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a short story collection by American writer David Foster Wallace, first published in 1999 by Little, Brown. According to the papers in the David Foster Wallace Archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, the book had an estimated gross sales of 28,000 hardcover copies during the first year of its publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Krasinski</span> American actor and filmmaker (born 1979)

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References

  1. "John Bailey, ASC: Exploring the aesthetics" (PDF). Motion.kodak.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 19, 2013. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  2. "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes . Archived from the original on April 9, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2023.
  3. "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men". Metacritic . Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  4. "2009 Sundance Film Festival Announces Films In Competition". sundance.org. December 3, 2008. Archived from the original on March 11, 2009.