ThiefHott Too much of everything

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

webster151-270-250523 I consider this film to be one of the undiscovered gems of the 90's, and I'd rank it among Hartley's 3 best works (along with "Trust" and his masterpiece: "Henry Fool"). The short running time shouldn't detract from its stature. (It's too long to be a "short", too short to be a "feature"...think of it as a novella on celluloid.) The dialogue is Hartley at his most deft and agile, the chemistry between the leads is magnificent, and the film is inventive and original at every turn, taking us into brilliant culdesacs and then returning us to the narrative with an easy grace. Quite simply, it's one of my all-time favorites, and I watch it at least once or twice a year on an old VHS copy, which I've nearly worn out. I love this movie.

kintopf432 It's very difficult to review a Hal Hartley movie after just one viewing. Like the best directors who walk the line between the avant-garde and the mainstream (David Lynch and Peter Greenaway are two others who come to mind), he makes films that require at least one and probably several additional viewings to properly absorb things. If you're willing to give his style a real chance, man, can he be a delightfully strange talent. In his early films at least, he combines brittle, talky screenplays, full of literary allusion and rhetorical question, with poker-faced performances and sudden moments of surprising physical comedy. Usually these elements come together around a story of genuine emotional resonance, with `Trust' perhaps being the finest example.`Surviving Desire' has all of these things. Where it fits into the overall scheme of Hartley pictures is hard to say, as I've only seen it once. But compared to his other early work, I found it a bit on the precious side, even for him. The academic setting gives Hartley free rein to indulge his penchant for literary reference, and there are times when you wish he was dealing with `simpler' people, as he does so well in `Trust' and `Simple Men' and even `Amateur.' Self-absorbed, world-weary, hyper-intellectual Jude occasionally seems to be a prototype for the satirical title character of `Henry Fool,' but without the irony, or at least without the same kind of irony. At the film's worst moments, its characters resemble those of Wes Anderson's twittering, twee nonsense films, or Whit Stillman's.At the same time, the emotional core you would hope to find at the center of things IS there, and the characters never truly cross the line into obnoxiousness. The screenplay glances wittily over several centuries' worth of amorous clichés, and in the end the film is still a fascinating experiment, even if it doesn't have the rapturous beauty of some of the director's other efforts. Recommended. It's hard to assign a numerical rating, of course, but for now let's say 7.5.

Sulo Kallas For me this one stands out of other work I have seen from Hal Hartley to date (5 films including Trust but not including Unbelievable Truth). This one left a much warmer feeling inside me than his other films. It had less black humour in it, but the characters were more open, warmer, became closer somehow.Its actually surprising that I liked this film that much as after finding Hal for myself, I have watched 5 cassettes worth of his films in a few weeks timeframe (one of them contains 3 of his short films including this one). I was actually afraid that I might get bored of his style, his means of presenting a story and characters, as the means, style change only a little from film to film. He has so many "trademarks" about his filmmaking.I needn't have been afraid. I can feel this one.

J-55 Surviving desire was made for American Television and is only about an hour long. Despite the limited running time, Hal Hartley has produced in this film his best work. Using his trademark non-naturalistic dialogue and intellectualism, Hartley builds odd, but very believable characters. This is a touching film, expertly made and contains Martin Donovan's finest performance as the frustrated Jude. Matt Malloy is also fantastic as Henry. The mixture of high art, the emotional, the bizarre and the mundane make this often ignored opus a must see for anyone interested in cinema. An understated and ever-fresh film full of brilliance. Not the best film ever made, but absolutely one of my favourites.