This Movie is Not Rated
Neil (Cillian Murphy) owns a video rental store that specializes in classic and hard to find movies. His entire life revolves around movies and running his store. His friends have the same interests and they often sit around the store discussing movies. Business is getting slow, due to a new chain video rental place opening up within a mile of his store.
Things change even more drastically for Neil when he meets Violet (Lucy Liu). She comes into his store to rent a video. Eventually, this leads to him taking her out for dinner. Which ends up being probably the most bizarre first date you can imagine. Involving things like, her pretending to be insanely drunk for part of it, mixing up the DVDs at the competitor’s store (by putting them in different cases than they belong in), running from the police and a goodnight kiss through a knothole in a fence.
Violet is very secretive about her life and won’t let Neil know where she lives or how to get in touch with her. She will just randomly show up and convince him to go somewhere with her. Neil is completely floored by her. He finds her completely confusing and frustrating, but at the same time is intrigued by her. The things she gets him involved in just keep getting crazier and wilder.
I really would like to know how she fits all that stuff into her purse, she is always pulling out weird/random, big stuff (maybe it’s like the Tardis … bigger on the inside – for some reason I felt the need to throw in a Doctor Who reference).
Cillian is absolutely adorable in this movie. It’s so fun to watch him play a character that’s a bit goofy and very much out of his element. He does a phenomenal job and has great comedic timing. This is the first thing I had ever seen Lucy in. She was wonderful at playing the enthusiastic and slightly off kilter Violet. Cillian and Lucy also had great chemistry together. Basically, the movie is just a lot of fun.
Some of my favorite scenes (without being too spoilery):
The breakup scene between Neil and Denise is great. He definitely has an interesting method of accomplishing it.
When Neil and Violet are in the video store mixing up all the DVDs and cases. It’s such a fun/cute scene between them.
The pool hopping scene. They find a house, with a pool, where the owner’s aren’t home. Then they hop the fence and go swimming. When they are done, they grab their clothes and hop back over the fence to leave. It seems like such a random, bizarre thing to do, but they act so casual about it, like it’s something they do everyday.
I totally love the scene when Neil is pretending to be a rock star to impress Violet. He has a whole venue set up in his backyard, complete with an audience of cardboard cutout movie stars (you know, the kind that stand up and are full height). Cillian looks completely gorgeous/hot as a rock star.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Denise – “I don’t believe this. What, next you’re gonna say “it’s not you it’s me”?”
Neil – “No, no, no, it’s definitely you.”
Neil – “Hey, I’d totally hire you but you’d f*ck up my inventory.”
Neil – “Tell you what man, that was the weirdest first date I ever had.”
Neil – “You carry binoculars?”
Violet – “Oh yeah, you’d be surprised how often these babies come in handy.”
Neil – “Well, that sounds incredibly…”
Violet – “Exciting?”
Neil – “I was gonna say “made up”.”
Neil – “If I set you up with someone who likes Ben Affleck you’d throw her out of a moving car.”
Violet – “But you didn’t give him my phone number, even though you thought you were gonna get buggered.”
Neil – “A baby wouldn’t stare at the sun anymore than it would hold it’s breath until it dropped dead.”
Neil – “I also have a wide selection of pornographic channels on my cable package.”
Violet – “I mean give me a break, you’re like the baby that never gets tired of peek-a-boo.”
Jan
Following is additional information about the movie that contains spoilers. If you don’t want to be spoiled don’t read any further.
Neil is such a nervous wreck when his friends meet Violet for the first time. As it turns out he was right to be worried. She pulls the stunt with the picnic lunch and then bails on them, how awkward.
Poor Neil finally decides that he should just go with the flow, because everything that has happened so far has ended up being something that Violet had setup. So he goes along with the robbery thinking it’s fake, only to find out he really robbed someone. He just can’t seem to figure her out and it’s driving him crazy.
