Director: Jill Sprecher
Starring: Alan Arkin, Matthew McConaughey, Clea DuVall, Amy Irving, John Turturro, Tia Texada, Barbara Sukowa, William Wise

- Reviewed by Linda

13 Conversations About One Thing is one of those films that takes a bunch of divergent stories and casually overlaps and intertwines them to varying degrees. This type of film's success is pretty much dependent on how interesting each of the segments are, and when some are a little more dull than others, it unfortunately makes the whole of the film less appealing. But that doesn't mean there aren't winning performances in this mosaic of a movie, and that these performances make 13 Conversations worth a look.

Matthew McConaughey, playing a hotshot, über-confident lawyer, displays the sort of superstar charisma we haven't seen from him in years. The film opens with him and his lawyer buddies at a bar, celebrating another successful day of locking up the scum of the city. He sees a sullen man at the bar (Alan Arkin) and they get into one of those five-minute "waiting for a drink" conversations, about how fate can dictate your happiness, and how everything can be taken from you in a split second. Of course this doesn't burst Matthew's bubble... but an incident on his drive home sure does.

Alan Arkin's subplot is easily the best, as he simply acts the hell out of his scenes as a bitter middle-manager in a generic old-school insurance company. One of his co-workers is too happy, he thinks, bringing homemade cookies to work from his wife, freshly grown tomatoes from his garden to share, and always looks on the bright side of life. Seeing someone so ridiculously happy makes Arkin seethe. To wipe the smile off the man's face, he decides to fire him, just out of sheer spite.

The other two subplots are a little less intriguing: Clea DuVall plays a starry-eyed sweet housekeeper who has fate deal her a cruel kick in the ass, and John Turturro plays an orderly college professor cheating on his wife (the most notable part of this plot was that Turturro has the same eyeglass frames as me!). These plots fail to catch fire like the other two, leaving the film sagging-to-dull in spots.

Ultimately, 13 Conversations reminded me a bit of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog, and the Polish-style cinema of human drama and morality. These people are all regular, normal people who have to deal with the hand that fate has dealt them. Some handle it well, others poorly. But unlike the Polish dramas, 13 Conversations ultimately has a slight bit of optimism, leaving you hopeful instead of defeated.

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