#1 ·
Yesterday at the Sundance Film Festival, I caught Whitney Houston’s “Love Odyssey.”
In it, the filmmaker basically interrogates her own chaotic romantic history.
Right at the start, she asks herself: “What is it about me that causes every single relationship to end in a breakup?”
To find an answer to that—and Tatiana is, say, somewhere in her mid-40s—she decides to track down every guy she’s dated since college. (There were more than five, though only five agreed to show up on camera), just so she can sit them down and talk through those old flames.
The narrative keeps cutting back to her current marriage, which is pretty much falling apart.
Tatiana has actually been filming herself, her life, and the people orbiting her since her college days.
So, we get this blend of vintage footage of her hanging out with exes and recent clips of her fighting with her husband—which eventually leads to their divorce.
She is the undisputed protagonist of her own life; her exes are just supporting characters she bumps into on the street, grabs a drink with at a bar, or even visits at home—where she ends up hugging their families and current wives (whose faces clearly scream “WTF?”)—they’re all just raw material for her vision.
Her “odyssey” doesn't really reach a resolution.
Instead, Tatiana remains beautiful and redheaded, lying in a meadow, nibbling on a flower while staring at the sky and sighing.
The movie is essentially a series of poetic, gorgeous shots interspersed with sighs for men, memories of past lovers, and it just kind of fizzles out at the end without a point—because, hey, it’s a real woman’s film.
"Love Odyssey," an American-Dutch co-production, somehow received this massive wave of promotion—it was featured at the opening of Sundance, played in every single one of the five halls at the Convention Center, and they were all packed.
The premiere was crawling with politicians—Eric Adams, Goldman, Pusić, a bunch of representatives, and even the President, who hung around after the credits rolled to have a long chat with the director.
And apparently, "Love Odyssey" was a massive hit with the crowd.
I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just because the filmmaker is such a charismatic, glamorous woman?
In it, the filmmaker basically interrogates her own chaotic romantic history.
Right at the start, she asks herself: “What is it about me that causes every single relationship to end in a breakup?”
To find an answer to that—and Tatiana is, say, somewhere in her mid-40s—she decides to track down every guy she’s dated since college. (There were more than five, though only five agreed to show up on camera), just so she can sit them down and talk through those old flames.
The narrative keeps cutting back to her current marriage, which is pretty much falling apart.
Tatiana has actually been filming herself, her life, and the people orbiting her since her college days.
So, we get this blend of vintage footage of her hanging out with exes and recent clips of her fighting with her husband—which eventually leads to their divorce.
She is the undisputed protagonist of her own life; her exes are just supporting characters she bumps into on the street, grabs a drink with at a bar, or even visits at home—where she ends up hugging their families and current wives (whose faces clearly scream “WTF?”)—they’re all just raw material for her vision.
Her “odyssey” doesn't really reach a resolution.
Instead, Tatiana remains beautiful and redheaded, lying in a meadow, nibbling on a flower while staring at the sky and sighing.
The movie is essentially a series of poetic, gorgeous shots interspersed with sighs for men, memories of past lovers, and it just kind of fizzles out at the end without a point—because, hey, it’s a real woman’s film.
"Love Odyssey," an American-Dutch co-production, somehow received this massive wave of promotion—it was featured at the opening of Sundance, played in every single one of the five halls at the Convention Center, and they were all packed.
The premiere was crawling with politicians—Eric Adams, Goldman, Pusić, a bunch of representatives, and even the President, who hung around after the credits rolled to have a long chat with the director.
And apparently, "Love Odyssey" was a massive hit with the crowd.
I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just because the filmmaker is such a charismatic, glamorous woman?