Have you ever started reading a novel and it's not very good and the characters are kind of weak, the plot is kinda typical and it's kinda about something that you really don't have any interest in, like model trains or something. But you read about 70 pages or so before you really realize that the book isn't really very good? I mean, model trains are okay and everything, but this book doesn't really tell you anything you don't already know about them. It's not like you're learning something new or there's some new twist going on. You think about putting the book down, but you're already reading it and you don't have anything else you really want to read and so, before you know it, you're like 2/3rds of the way through the book and it has gotten a little better. You realize you are already invested in the characters and story so you might as well stick with it until you're done. What the hell.

"Cape of Good Hope" is very much like that. The characters are paper thin. The dialogue is hopelessly creaky. The acting is mediocre. The plot is rather uninteresting and all the characters work in a animal shelter. Animals are about as interesting to me as peace is to George Bush. The film takes place in South Africa with the titular area being the setting but it could really take place almost anywhere. There are three storylines that intertwine here. The woman who runs the shelter is dating a married man and her mother is a bitch. A widowed veterinarian in the neighborhood is interested in her but she seems oblivious to this. The Indian woman who works with her is having trouble getting pregnant and her blowhard, fitness enthusiast husband is reluctant to have his fertility checked out at the local clinic. Meanwhile, the man who works tending to the animals (he is a foreigner, although I'm not exactly sure where he's supposed to be from) becomes interested in a young single mother after her young son begins working at the shelter. The man dreams of being an astronomer and is trying to get some sort of work visa to go to Canada. His love interest has to put up with a lascivious white employer (who, of course, eventually attempts to rape her) as well as her bitch of a mother, who is trying to hook her up with the new minister at their church.

This soaper of a story ties up all its loose ends in a finale that pulls all the threads of this threadbare plot together to form an rope of a happy ending that somehow seems to work despite its contrivances. The only problem is a weird final scene where the minister is turned into a buffoon while all the other characters point and laugh at him. It's a bit disrespectful and cruel even though the minister is shown to be a jerk. "Cape of Good Hope" isn't the worst film I've ever seen but it is probably the worst film I've seen at an arthouse this year.

Notes:

Directed by Mark Bamford. Co-written by him with Suzanne Kay Bamford whom also produced.

This film won two awards at the Austin Film Festival in 2004. I don't even remember hearing about it. The film debuted at Cannes earlier that year (at a market screening). Artistic License began an arthouse run with the film in November of 2005.

Viewed at a press sneak in the Gothic Room of the Dobie Theater in December of 2005. Jegar and Leila of "The Austin Movie Show" were there as well as a couple other press folks.

Report Card

Script: C+

Acting: C+

Cinematography\Lighting: C-

Special Effects\Make Up: C

Music: C-

Final Grade: C-