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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 59438
Released: January 25, 2005 |
| Our Price: $3.77 |
| Used Price: $1.88 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Neve Campbell, Dominic Chianese and Fred Weller star in this smoldering erotic thriller about a femme fatale exploring the frightening reach of her sexual power - and the red-hot fusion of money, power and desire. Directed by James Toback, When Will I Be Loved is an "illumination of sexual and identity politics" (Slant Magazine) that sizzles and seduces.
Description of When Will I Be Loved:
Neve Campbell is an arresting enigma in When Will I Be Loved, one of writer-director James Toback's most mysterious and successful minimalist dramas about sex, deception, and mutable identities in New York City. Campbell plays twentysomething beauty Vera, whose nude shower scene during the film's opening credits looks more like mythic preparation for a soon-to-be-fateful day than brazen exploitation. Ensconced in a fantastic loft paid for by her parents (Barry Primus, Karen Allen), the unemployed Vera embarks on an odyssey that begins with a mutually deceitful job interview with a college professor (Toback), leads to misadventures in questionable perception in Central Park, and climaxes with Vera's successful manipulation of two powerful men, one a craven lover (Fred Weller) and the other an Italian billionaire (Dominic Chianese) trying to get her in bed for a lot of money. Provocative as a good urban legend, the film sticks with one for a long time. --Tom Keogh
When Will I Be Loved Reviews:
She Walks on the Wild Side 
2009-01-31 - James Toback wrote and directed this intriguing erotic thriller about a wealthy girl (Neve Campbell) who likes to walk on the wild side.
For some unaccountable reason, Neve is romantically involved with a low class hustler (Fred Weller) who is always looking for a new con. Just now, he's met a ultra-rich Italian count (Dominic Chianese) who has seen Neve, wants to meet her and, for this service offers Weller $100,000.
More out of curiosity than anything else, Neve agrees to the meeting and then, almost off the top of her head, decides to get even with these two men who think of her as a piece of merchandise.
Exquisitely written, directed and acted (Campbell has never been better), this is a first rate film, endowed with a subtle tension and a couple of surprise plot twists, that deserves to be seen.
Extras include audio commentary by Toback, plus an on-screen conversation with the director and Campbell in which they discuss the film's sexually-oriented scenes.
The Hollow Ring of Falsely Hip-Sophistication 
2008-08-21 - An Exercise in "Look at ME, I make FILMS!" by Jimmy-Jam Toback
A segue from hip-hop to classical is our cue that Toback's sophisticated. Oh, and hip. Remember that.
Next, throw in gratuitous cameos; Mike Tyson, Darrel Hannah, Damon Dash... and of course Mr. belly himself, Jimmy-Jam.
Add dumb, self-consciously protracted dialog that's supposed to remind all of us commoners how wordly, clever, learned... JJ is. Instead, this self-indulgent piece of doo-doo just rings hollow. What a waste of time.
And isn't time THE most valuable thing?
This is worse than trying to pass a brick diagonally. Twice.
When Will I Be Loved - A Good Title Wasted on A Mediocre Script 
2008-08-21 - The type of characters that are portrayed in When Will I Be Loved are common in New York City. The fast talking hustler, the self important intellectual, the rich and irresponsible girl with the world at her fingertips. It all seems so real and familiar.
The title of this movie implies that we will see something profound, a young woman seeking a true connection with love. Yet the movie is not about this at all. It's really just about two timing hustlers trying to hustle each other because they have way too much time and money on their hands. In the end, this title should have been reserved for a much better script.
The Story and the Script
The main problem with this movie is the lack of a truly strong story line. Ford's character is manipulative and clearly obsessed with seeming more important and connected than he is. Yet Neve Cambbell plays a girl that is hardly interesting and manipulative in more subtle ways. We see her randomly jump from scene to scene of banal social interaction and sexual exploration. And we see him walking from scene to scene trying to have pointless meetings and looking for the next sucker to take advantage of.
When a wealthy man, Dominic Chianese of The Sopranos, wants to sleep with Neve at all costs, one is never really convinced of the most important part of that: Why??? Somebody with unlimited money would probably have set their glance on a much more interesting woman.
All of the plot elements seem forced. People have encounters with famous people, seemingly just so that they can have cameos in this movie. While Black & White employed this technique with a little more purpose, here it is used as an old stand by and seems to actually interfere with the story. And the climax of the movie is neither believable nor is it impactful. It just makes you wonder, was this the original script or the result of too many cooks in the kitchen?
There are some great actors working in this movie, as well as some good ones. The handheld camera work is effective for the city scenes, even if it is overused. And the art direction and sound work on the movie were also very good. But none of the positives can redeem a story with no connection to its title and no believable or compelling elements.
Conclusion
This movie should be avoided at all costs. No matter how much you may like gratuitous nudity and sex in films, even the short length of this movie may be too long to bear. On the other hand, if you are having trouble getting to sleep this might do the trick.
Steamy, but shallow
2008-02-13 - James Toback's When Will I Be Loved attains most of its notoriety due to Neve Campbell's uninhibited turn in the film. Campbell plays Vera; a pampered, sexually charged young woman living in a beautiful loft paid by her parents, who begins to feel underappreciated by her hustler boyfriend Ford (Fred Weller) and lashes out in one of the few ways she knows how to. Along for the ride is a wealthy, Italian, media mogul (Dominic "Uncle Junior Soprano" Chianese), who desires to spend a night with Vera, and makes an offer that neither Vera nor Ford may be able to refuse. While When Will I Be Loved offers some wonderfully filmed steamy scenes, the film is a sadly shallow, often floundering take on Indecent Proposal. Campbell is as gorgeous as ever, but her character is also the only one in the film that is the least bit interesting as well, not to mention the only one that comes anywhere close to being likeable. With appearances by Mike Tyson, Damon Dash, and Lori Singer (all of which portray themselves) that come out of nowhere, Where Will I Be Loved just falters. Worth a look for Campbell fans, but that's pretty much it.
Neve, what were you thinking?
2008-01-08 - James Toback's 2004 film When Will I Be Loved stars Party of Five actress Neve Campbell in her sexiest performance to date. It makes little sense why she would refuse to break her "no-nudity" film clause for Robert Altman's The Company (2003), which she co-wrote and produced, only to break it a year later for this otherwise pointless film. Neve, what were you thinking?
Insofar as I can tell, Campbell's nude shower scenes (there are two) are the only reason why anyone would be drawn to When Will I Be Loved, a film which actually has very little to do with love or anything else. The film tells the story of Vera (Neve Campbell), a beautiful NYC twenty-something, who outhustles her hustler boyfriend, Ford (Frederick Weller), by having sex with an octogenarian Italian Count (Dominic Chianese) in exchange for a million dollars. Cambell has a few intriguing moments in the film, but is not convincing as a NYC libertine. The resulting film is neither Cassavettes, Sex and the City, nor Indecent Proposal. By way of contrast, Cambell does not use her breakthrough nudity role in this film in the same way Juliette Binoche used her breakthrough nudity role in Rendez-Vous. While Neve Cambell does great, twenty-minute nude shower scenes, I expect so much more from a movie experience. This film left me feeling empty.
G. Merritt
