In 14 days absolutely nothing is going to happen. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Bagel.
The avant-garde 14 days from director Joseph Villapaz is an interesting experiment, if not an especially good movie. Its most endearing attribute is a runtime at just under an hour.
14 vignettes are presented, most of which seem to have little in common except the park bench in New York City where they are set.
Dimension hopping aliens pop up in a few scenes discussing whether humans are worth saving from a coming inter-dimensional conflict despite our penchant for inhumanity, war, power, and narcissistic avarice. Can you feel the love tonight? The film ends without much having happened except these conversations and some fairly cheesy special effects.
“…if we ever do encounter sentient aliens, they’ll be just as clueless as we are.”
It might have been shot on a phone without an image stabilizer, this being the micro-budget at work. Poor cinematography, shot mostly in close-up: I didn’t realize how awkward that would feel if held for too long. The answer is very. The acting is forced and wooden. The script is amateurish.
Good looking people make up the cast so it has that going for it. Not the worst hour I ever spent watching film and I’m comparing it to my experiences with more conventional movies which is probably unfair. As an amateur micro-budget experimental art film it is not unwatchable. A number of small film fests have awarded accolades to 14 Days so take my opinion with a grain of salt (always) and decide for yourself.
The notion that more advanced, wiser aliens are judging us is an old one. From literature back to Stanislaw Lem’s book Tales of Pirx the Pilot, to stories like Isaac Asimov’s Silly A***s, to James Cameron’s movie The Abyss, to the TV series Babylon 5, it seems when we find ourselves too sophisticated for the old gods we make up new ones that fit our contemporary technological model of the world.
I strongly suspect that if we ever do encounter sentient aliens, they’ll be just as clueless as we are.
14 Days (2014) Written and Directed by Joseph Villapaz. Starring Emily Dennis, Michael Wetherbee, Johanna Finn.
4 out of 10
