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Thirteen Conversations
About One Thing (2001)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 1/15

13Conv
1/15: Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is misleading because what is that specific thing they're all talking about?

No, the appropriate title should be Emotional Intelligence. It's easy to predict how everybody will react to a given situation, big or small, and handle it afterwards. John Turturro's and Alan Arkin's characters deal with the mugging incident in different ways because one will accept the consequence while the other will be resentful. The same goes for being hit by a car.

That's why emotional intelligence, which is mostly derived from IQ, is a big factor that determines the person's personality. People are questioned all the time whether they see the glass half-full or half-empty. The given answer says a lot about them.

Because Matthew McConaughey's character is a lawyer, he should know better not to drive away because his actions weren't criminal to begin with. So, I blame the director for causing the situation to be murkier than necessary because it's manipulative which prevented me from seeing the whole picture.

On the other hand, the male physics student who jumped out of the building is a "who cares?" moment because of his inability to deal with the truth that he isn't academically cut out for medical school. There must be more into his situation that I don't know, but the final exam is usually never the be-all and end-all. Rather, it's a cumulation of his preparation going back for years.

Anyway, Alan Arkin gives the best performance of the ensemble cast, and nobody is even close. It's because his character is the most developed; in other words, he's the most human while the rest is more or less plastic and therefore not worth caring. There's a New York feel going on, but it's not too New York like these awful Woody Allen movies even though the formula is exactly the same. From start to finish, the only adjective that screams out to me is "pretentious," and I can never shake it off.

All in all, Emotional Intelligence is a thought-provoking picture with intelligent conversations, but it's been mainly Alan Arkin's show.