review Detours

[James Rogers]

It's the story of a newly single New Yorker re-locating to Florida; she drives south with her widowed dad and her mom's ashes in a coffee can.
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That's the tagline for this movie, which was written and produced by IndieTalk's own Mara Lesemann! Starring Tara Westwood and Carlo Forletta



I discovered, quite on accident that Mara is married to Carlo Forletta

The real star of the film is Tara Westwood.

A super talented actress with heart stopping beauty.


Also in the film, an actress I've had a crush on since I first laid eyes on her, Kim Director!

I first saw Kim in Blair Witch 2. OMG such eyes! Then, there she was again in Summer of Sam, a Spike Lee film.

I enjoyed Detours very much. Tara has the kind of presence that you usually associate with A list actors and actresses. In my opinion, she did very well with her roll as the newly divorced woman dealing with the fact that her husband left her for another man. LOL.. She didn't see that coming.

The movie is mostly Jennifer, played by Tara, traveling with her dad, played by Mara's husband, Carlo, so, in that sense, the movie is mostly a two person show.

The writing was good. There was one line that caught me off guard though. When tara was talking to Carlo in the car and she stated about her ex-husband "he likes cock". Well, I almost choked on my potato chips.

I was very impressed with the sound. The dialog in the car was so clear that I noticed how good it was. Bravo.

I don't want to give away too much of the story for those who haven't seen it so I'll skip now to the critical portion of my musings..

Mara, I know Carlo is your husband but, his hair. What did you guys use on him, gray hair in a can? All I could think everytime I saw him was "please, somebody get that man a bottle of hair conditioner".

Tara's date. The actor who played her date, Michael Cerveris, is not a bad looking guy- when he has hair, but that first close up on his bald head freaked me out. He was wearing red lipstick! and his clothes looked like he dressed himself in the dark. I was thinking to myself, No Tara, don't do it! Don't have sex with him! You could do much much better!

Deirdre O'Connell was good! At first, I though she was the actress who played the hooker in Mel Gibson's Payback but it wasn't here..

Richard Kind. I've seen him someplace before. I can't place it though. I went to IMDB but I could not say for sure where I'd seen him. He was good but I didn't understand his role. Maybe I missed something but all of a sudden Tara was talking to him then I never saw him again...

I enjoyed your movie, Mara. Please make another one soon, and if you see Kim, tell her I said Hi!


Mara on the news with Tara

 

[mlesemann]

Thanks so much for the kind words!

Ahhh Carlo's hair....that was a challenge. We needed to gray it to play up the age difference which isn't all that big in real life, but let's just say that was harder than our experienced make up crew expected. Fair criticism but we did our best and conditioner wouldn't have helped

And yeah, you were supposed to choke on your potato chip on the "he likes cock" line 'cause that's the response the daughter was trying for.

Re sound - we worked our proverbial asses off to get good sound, with a combo of lavalier mics & booms so I'm damn glad you noticed/appreciated it.

You're absolutely right about Tara - she does indeed have that presence. She's also damn smart, which is why I'm working on another project with her (my real "keep your fingers crossed" movie).

And fyi - Kim Director is a real sweetheart.