At Sundance last year, Steve Buscemi took Theo van Gogh's 2003 film Interview and remade it into a 90-minute drama about only two people, and pulled off a great movie. This year the second Theo van Gogh film in the series of three being remade also debuted, and it wasn't nearly as grand of a spectacle. Blind Date, starring and directed by Stanley Tucci, is an utter disaster in comparison to Interview. It was as dry as the martini that Tucci drinks in almost every scene and nothing more than a boring waste of time.
Blind Date is about a married couple, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, who attempt to reignite their love by setting up a series of thematic blind dates, from an actual blind man seeking a woman to a father seeking a daughter and so on. There is no introductory setup and it hurts the film's progress, even though the story later reveals the explanation behind their relationship problems. This entire concept of a couple talking about love and life was flimsy and uneventful and it's set entirely in one bar, give or take a scene in a connected bumper car arena.
Tucci is actually not that bad as an actor in Blind Date, but that doesn't do anything to helping save this film. This is entirely much better suited as a theatrical play, and it's as if Tucci set it up to be just that. Like Sleuth from last year as well, this just isn't a great conversion from theater to cinema. Only Theo van Gogh himself could pull that off, and even Buscemi came quite close as well. While I might say there is a lot to interpret and gain from seeing this story played out, the only way to see it is on a stage, not in a theater.
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