Blind Date

Director and co-writer Stanley Tucci’s Blind Date is an admirable attempt to essentially film a one-act play, but it’s too boring and obvious in the execution. Tucci also stars along with the always reliable Patricia Clarkson as an estranged married couple torn apart over the death of their daughter. They place personal ads for each other in which they seek specific types, and meet up at a gloomy nightclub to play out their roles, using the performances to indirectly express their grief. The idea of a spent married couple playing out a gnarled version of the mating ritual has legs (Blind Date is a remake of a Theo van Gogh film), but the performers never transcend the “acting exercise” atmosphere. Instead of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-style fireworks, we get the cinematic equivalent of blacksnakes.