Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

missrri This small-budget independent film requires multiple views, because the plot seems different with every watch. At first, the film seems like a middle-aged author- professor's sexual fantasy - living in an apartment with two 19-year-old attractive female students who are open to all experiences (drugs, casual sex etc.). Then, on second thought, the film proves to be intellectually stimulating for it provides the watchers not merely a man's schoolgirl fantasy, but it provides some free-of-charge very accurate and very helpful tips on creative fiction writing and novel writing - the kind you pick up in writing classes. After watching it a couple of times, the film grows on you in terms of plot presentation technique and character development, and you accept the gratuitous writing advice wrapped up in a man's one-week sexual odyssey. What's even more clever about this film's scenario is the fact that Richard (Campbell Scott) ends up in his ultimate fantasy without him actually provoking it per se. He merely accepts the invitation of crashing on a couch, without sending off signals about being sexually attracted to the female students, and yet, they are the ones who pursue him and make a pass at him. Thus, the film implies Richard's sexual quest to be Kristen's and Jacqueline's choice, not his. He merely plays along on the 'song' chosen by the two young women. His advances towards another female character at the beginning of the film proving unsuccessful, he ceases to emanate availability, but things actually turn in his favour without his deliberate efforts. Campbell Scott acts marvellously in the role of egocentric author and occasional writing professor Richard McMurray, and he adds the right amount of seduction, humour and quirkiness to the character. He might, as well, have told Diane: ''I was there, just minding my own writing, when these two started sleeping with me.'' The comedy of the situation is nicely dealt with by a cool and self-controlled Campbell Scott who, apart from occasional mishaps, always says the right things and the right double-meaning advice at the right time, without ever turning into an old perv who gets what he wants out of every situation.

MBunge Crashing has to be one of the best movies ever made about writing. Not about being a writer, but about the act and even compulsion of writing itself. It wraps you up in the creative process and drenches you in the inspiration and perspiration of success. Anchored by the slyly ingratiating performance of Campbell Scott, this is a gossamer delight.Richard McMurray (Campbell Scott) is a writer. As he was entering middle age, he wrote a commercial and critical smash hit called "The Trouble With Dick". Now about to leave middle age, Richard has been struggling with his second book for years. It's not that he's blocked and can't write, it's that every word he puts on the page sucks. Richard might have stewed in his stagnant juices forever but his Hollywood actress locks him out of their Malibu home, something he assumes is her way of asking for a divorce.Seemingly unfazed by it all, Richard walks away with nothing but a suitcase. The unfinished second novel remains behind on the computer in his now former home. He goes directly to keep a promise to speak to a college writing class taught by his old flame Diane (Alex Kingston), where Richard promptly spills his guts to the students about being tossed out with no where to sleep that night. A beautiful young student named Kristen (Izabella Miko) offers to let Richard crash on the couch in the apartment she shares with her roommate Jacqueline (Lizzy Caplan). As a lark, Richard accepts their offer. Once he's ensconced on their living room couch, though, something happens. Richard watches the girls, he looks at the evidence of their lives, and his smothered creative spark starts to smolder again. He asks the girls if he can stay and they agree, as long as Richard helps them with their own writing. What follows that is a marvelous, smart and funny weave of the girls' stories brought to life, Richard's life in the girls apartment and Richard's version of the girls and his life in their apartment that he's writing down on a yellow legal pad.This charming mix of fantasy, reality and fantasy modeled after reality is held together by Scott's exquisitely subdued and detached acting. He presents us with a writer who's a bit different than what we usually encounter in fiction. He's committed but not tormented by writing. Richard has given himself over so completely to his art that almost everything he thinks and feels is in service to it. He's not filled with self-pity or self-loathing or anger or frustration, just a quiet determination to get the word right. Richard takes everything that exists between him and the girls and focuses it not on them or himself but on the writing. Richard McMurray is a guy who writes because he can't do anything else and doesn't want to.This film is also a great introduction to the craft of storytelling. First in the way Richard critiques the girls' writing, identifying the fundamental issues within and pushing them to improve, and then in the way we see Richard writing the story of his time with the girls, imagining it one way and then the other, always looking for the best and truest fiction he can conjure. If you've ever tried to be or thought about being a writer, watching Crashing will make you want to pick up the pen or sit down at the keyboard and try again.Now, the whole mixing of real and pretend and the pretend version of what's real gets slightly precious toward the end of the movie, but it ends before it gets that bad. And this is not a film with a lot of plot or big emotional scenes. What Crashing does is take you into the life of another person and make you understand why he lives that way, while simultaneously giving you a taste of the trial and challenge a writer faces trying to create new worlds out of thin air. I had a really good time watching this movie and I think a lot of other people would too.

mcravener Geez it's been a while since I've written a review but I've been in a rut seeing action-prison-bad-guy-does-good genre flicks that usually end up boring me after 20 minutes. The last film that actually amused me was the latest Star Trek (2009). It's been a dry spell when it comes to movies that go beyond face value - I kid you not...Crashing (2007) had me interested from the starting credit music - a quirky, sparse little woodwind theme that would be repeated throughout the film.The film is about a the travails of a writer, Richard McMurray (Campbell Scott) stumbling over himself and the roadblock of first novel success. Comfortable, complacent and frustrated by eternally trying to repeat the formula of his first book.Richard's life gets ripped apart when his wife kicks him out of the house and freezes his bank accounts. At a creative writing presentation he tells of his writer's block and new sense of heady liberation due to circumstances beyond his control, and gets invited to crash at the apartment of a female student. And so Richard ends up sleeping on the couch of coeds Kristen and Jacqueline, provided that he critiques their own writing endeavors.Much credit to Izabella Miko and Lizzy Caplan, who nicely contrast each other as the muse twins of dark and light. I've been a fan of Campbell Scott since Roger Dodger (2002) and here he is just as amusingly self-deprecating.It's an engrossing movie that will pull you in as the author and two young girls intertwine in life and in fiction.

dudespell A handsome middle aged man and two beautiful young women just came to live together, all three striving to picture a book character of each other, in a tense but fresh relationship for all involved.The body nudity was replaced by some embarrassing conversation and the sex was replaced by invasion into personal space, and everything happens in a light mood.So, don't expect "Crashing" to be a movie for your sexual hormones or your fears, it isn't for your brain either, if you are a writer or do any other form of creative work it will be 75 minutes of pleasure.The original music fits perfectly and the acting is good.