I saw the one movie of his I'd missed, "No Looking Back" (NLB), last night. I had heard it compared to "Ash Wednesday" (which remains my favorite movie of Ed's), but I'd say that's true only in that it isn't comedic. It *does*, very much, have a romantic relationship at its center, though--the Claudia (Lauren Holly)/Michael (Jon Bon Jovi)/Charlie (Ed Burns) triangle--although the theme of the movie isn't really that. (I think you could say that "Ash Wednesday" is the only Burns movie since "The Brothers McMullen" to place the relationship of the brothers, rather than lovers, as the focus of the movie.)
NLB was Ed's third movie, after McMullen and She's the One. If there seemed to be a progression from the first to the second, NLB was a change of pace in many respects. It does continue to trend of exploring inter-twining relationships: Claudia, who was once in love with Charlie, is now living with his best friend, Michael. (Only best friends this time--in other movies we quite often see brothers dating the same woman.) The strangest part of this movie was that Ed, who is playing the sort of likeable guy he always does, it not the person I see as the real Ed Burns stand-in in this movie--Lauren Holly is. Claudia seems a lot more like the ambitious young Ed Burns who escaped his suburban roots to make good, than does the charismatic but basically shiftless Charlie. Or maybe Charlie isn't worthless--but all we know about him is that he made his escape, and has now slunk back, a failure. His mother insinuates that this has happened before. We don't know what he was trying to do, or how he failed. He tells us he's only going to be home briefly, but we don't see any concrete plans from him. Claudia, although she is finally pushed out of her routine by an outside influence (Charlie's return), seems like she is making a concerted effort to get away, and we suspect she will be successful.
Maybe Ed left Charlie intentionally vague, to keep the emphasis on Claudia. But that backfires: to understand and emphathize with Claudia, we need to see her struggle with her choices. And Jon Bon Jovi makes his Michael so much more attractive than Charlie, that you have to wonder about the woman who walks away from that relationship. If the primary strength of McMullen was its characters, the lack of strong, interesting characters here is the biggest flaw of the movie. You're happy with Claudia's decision, in the end, but only academically. It doesn't really involve you. I think Ed really missed the mark with Charlie, especially since that's his part: people who like his acting will be disappointed in the character, and people who don't will find no redeeming features in his performance at all. In every other movie of his, his portrayal of the protagonist (whether you are a fan of his acting ability or not) has at least been truthful, and helped you understand both the charcter and the filmmaker. Here, it doesn't.
So... I'm glad I saw the movie. I liked it, maybe even a little better than some of the fluffier ones. But it certainly wasn't great. The backdrop is dismal and grey and uninteresting, and unfortunately the characters seem to take their cue from their surroundings. That might be realistic, but it's not very involving. I'm still waiting until I can see "Ash Wednesday" again and see if it holds up as his best work (as I remember it in retrospect).
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