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Review : Minutes Idle

added: 27 Feb 2014 // release date: 14 Feb 2014 
certificate: 15 // director: Mark Simon Hewis
studio: BFI/BBC Films/Matador Pictures // film length 86 mins 


8-Minutes-Idle
Based on Matt Thorne's novel about life in a Bristol call centre, this limp-along rom-com, 8 Minutes Idle, is one of those films that desperately tries hard to be surreal and funny, but ultimately comes up short. It's such a shame too, as I'm normally a fan of off-beat romantic comedies - but the experience left me
feeling I would rather suffer ten, excruciating telephone conversations dealing with a BT Broadband representative, than watching this hotchpotch film again.

Twenty-something Dan Thomas (Tom Hughes - About Time, Cemetery Junction)is evicted by his mum for letting his estranged, dead-beat dad into the family home to steal her winning lottery ticket. With prized possessions and beloved cat in tow, the now homeless and hapless Dan, resorts to secretly sleeping in a store-cupboard at work. During the day, he whiles away the hours taking calls and engaged in half-hearted workplace chit-chat with colleagues. Whereas, after-hours life becomes a series of strip down washes in the gents toilet using industrial strength, allergy-inducing hand soap, dancing in underwear, feeding tropical fish from the office fish-tank to his cat and masturbating over the back of the boss's chair wearing her jacket.

This new living arrangement is the main thrust of the film without, oddly enough, having little bearing on the storyline as a whole or its outcome. But what does impact on proceedings is the clunky mixture of underdeveloped, unbelievable characters and their actions. As the film progressed, I started to have a hunch that finding true love possibly wasn't much of a feature in Thorne's original novel. That perhaps, in transferring it to the big screen, a decision was taken to butcher the book, add a palatable love-interest and finally piece it back together in a Frankenstein-esque manner to fit the 'rom-com' screenplay template.

Ever the script detective, I decided to read the book version of 8 Minutes Idle, to discover if my intuition was indeed accurate - and sadly, I was. What took me by surprise was that I didn't expect both film and novel to be so consistent in their inconsistency. That said, they could make a great example in teaching film students how not to adapt a novel, however loosely. And as long as Matt Thorne doesn't have aspirations of subjecting us to a sequel, all will be well in the world.

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