Neve Campbell, for all the acting turmoil's she's been through from squeaky clean teen queen, to horror movie heroine, she's never been considered a great actress by me, but in here, she really does manage to break free from that image and becomes a pure sexual figment. She's gorgeous here, and presents all the sexual allure you'd want in a femme fatale. Campbell really comes in to her own as an amorous and seductive woman, here. She's gorgeous, and finally breaks from her squeaky clean image flawlessly. She's a compelling character half the time and really gives one stand out performance. Campbell's character is a person of shades of gray with actions that would make us question ourselves in the process, and the final act in which she basically composes a brutal situation is slightly well done only because only a woman of her mind could create it. And then, with a sadly misfired last scene, we learn that after all she's done, after all she does, she can still look at herself in the mirror.

First off, I just want to say, words can not express my utter disappointment, and crushing disillusionment I had when watching "When will I be Loved?" Words can not tell you how utterly crushed I was after anxiously watching this only to discover--it was the kind of independent film I detest. "When Will I Be Loved?" is the essence, the exemplification of the art house independent film that I despise, and the exact type of film that alienates the mainstream audience. What in god's name were the writers and directors thinking when approaching this mess? The character emphases is utterly boring, the first half of the film is padding beyond padding, there are pointless sex scenes that are too long to be considered erotic, and there is so much meaningless arbitrary dialogue, all just to tell us in the end: "This girl... she's a real cunt, eh?" What's the point?

Why do you give us these characters only to never achieve the focus? You make a film about a woman who fucks people over, focus. on. her! Don't go from character to character just to give us the impression we're getting somewhere. This has all the makings of an art house shit fest that mainstream audiences use as an excuse to stay away from. There's classical music blaring in the background non-stop, self-congratulatory analyses of the characters by the characters, hazy grainy photography and direction, et al. It's so infuriating and condescending to the audience expecting an elegy about these characters only to have it made perfectly clear to us we're watching a film. I wanted to care about these characters, I struggled to, I made it my mission to look at these characters and explore their thoughts, but nothing here ever brought me in to their world, and only kept me as an outside observer listening to their rambling and rambling.

There's the hustler whose own hubris will be his downfall, the count who seeks a night with Campbell's character, and Campbell a woman who, for some reason, attracts every single man. No disrespect to Ms. Campbell, she is a very good looking woman, but hardly someone I'd leave my girlfriend for. Then the film is meandering with dialogue that goes absolutely nowhere, and utterly snail-paced exposition only to deliver a final joke in the climax? Give me a break. Then there are the sexual scenes which are there only to show the audience how "utterly daring and edgy" Ms. Campbell has become. Throughout these scenes, all I was thinking was: "Okay, we get it, these people are sexually explorative. Can we get to the story already?"

We spend the first half of this film completely drawing out the main characters of the story. We follow them every step of the way before the story begins, but the problem is, they're hardly interesting to watch. And hey, I love classical music, but would it have hurt the director to cut it so I could actually hear the fucking dialogue? Throughout the entire film there is classical music played on an endless loop that made it extremely difficult to hear what these characters were saying. But with the right attempt, the ending that's meant as a "surprise" ending, would have actually been surprising, instead we're left with remnants of a film that ends as just a poor man's "Indecent Proposal".

This was so damn disappointing, I can't stress this sentiment enough. I was so ecstatic to finally see this film, and watch what the cast and crew had to offer us, but in spite of Campbell's good performance, utterly raw sexual presence, and decent dialogue, "When Will I Be Loved?" is shamelessly stereotypical art house fodder.

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