Rating: 

The Info

Directed by: Myles Berkowitz
Written by: Myles Berkowitz
Starring: Myles Berkowitz, Elisabeth Wagner , Richard Arlook, Tia Carrere
Produced by: Mark McGarry, Jason Villard

The Nutshell

Myles Berkowitz is a young filmmaker who decides to film himself on 20 dates in a quest to find true love during a documentary.

The Review

   20 Dates is one of the more audacious attempts of a young film-maker to get noticed ever. Billed as a documentary, this is the quest of Myles Berkowitz to find true love for himself, in 20 dates. Unfortunately, it is obviously more mockumentary than  documentary. However, due to his extreme self-confidence and ego, Berkowitz manages to carry his film and give us a good time.

    Berkowitz takes us down the path from his idea's beginnings, to getting funding from Elie the Producer and finally to getting his crew and filming. Myles does indeed go on 20 dates, and actually finds true love along the way. In fact, his falling for one of his dates is the main reason that his film stays intriguing: Elisabeth, the woman he falls for, understandably isn't happy with the fact that Myles has to finish his movie (i.e. go on more dates).

    Myles is funny. He is a neurotic Jew a la Woody Allen, just not so old. He puts himself and others down, including all of France. He makes us wince with some of his ideas that go wrong (trying to film a date without the date knowing, and then getting sued for invasion of privacy). He makes us laugh when things go uncontrollably wrong, such as when his cameraman trips and falls, breaking the camera. His sound man's constant snickering at his gaffes, while sometimes not quite spontaneous-looking, allows us to laugh at Myles without feeling bad about it.

    On the bad side, too much of 20 Dates is contrived. While his secretly taped conversations with financier/producer Elie are often crudely funny, the path  Elie eventually takes, ending up ordering Myles around from a prison, is so obviously set-up it's embarrassing. Other little problems abound, such as frequent filler material from romantic films of the past 10 years (Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally mainly) and rather boring scenes of Myles visiting his agent.

    Myles Berkowitz may or may not get a career out of this experiment but he will definitely get the 15 seconds of fame he so obviously wants, and audiences will get enough laughs to justify seeing this clever little film.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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