Full spoilers for some obscure movies you’ve never heard of starring some people that may or may not surprise you. Let’s delve into The Château, The Shape of Things, and Two Days. Also, a trigger warning of sorts: These movies are sad and weird and about depressing topics.

The Château(2001) stars Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Sylvie Testud, Donal Logue, Philippe Nahon, Marie Verdi, and Didier Flamand. It was directed by Jesse Peretz and written by Thomas Bidegain and Jesse Peretz.

The plot of this movie is, according to IMDb, “Two brothers go to France to claim the chateau they have inherited.” Already sounds like a thrill ride.

• From minute one you know this is an old movie, but a particular kind of old movie. It’s not that old because it came out a year before I was born, but it’s from that era where you had to select widescreen or full screen on the DVD movie before watching. Not since Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties have I had to think about that.
• I fairly immediately realized I won’t like this movie. First of all, it looks like it’s filmed on a camcorder, it looks like shit. Secondly, we’re introduced to our main characters in a train montage of conversation intercut with cheesy 2000’s animated title openings that make this look more like a “Learning to Speak French Beginners” video than the beginning of a comedy. And Paul Rudd’s character is named Graham Granville. What a terrible name.
• Romany Malco’s character owns an internet company where he explains erectile dysfunction. And Paul Rudd’s character is a disgusting unlikeable grub who doesn’t wash his hands if he blows “A pound of snot into his fucking hands”.
• They get to the Chateau in the middle of the night and you can’t see shit. This will be a long 91 minutes.
• There’s some solid comedy from Paul misunderstanding how to speak basic French and assuming it’ll be warm so he gets stuck with dirty socks and flip flops.
• So apparently Romany’s adopted, and these two brothers found out they were distantly related to a Count in France who inexplicably left them this house that requires a lot of money to fix and keep in the family.
• Graham Granville works at something called The Glass Onion, which is a big mistake on this movie’s behalf, making me think of a movie that comes out 21 years later and looks so much better.
• So Paul Rudd is the idiot brother, and Romany Malco is the straight man, which is not the impression you get from the poster. Romany Malco does not care about any of the staff at the Chateau, he wants to get rid of it for the money and he doesn’t give a shit that they’ll all get dislocated from jobs they had for decades. And Paul Rudd is the weird dumb brother that’s decided to care about the people working here and keeps awkwardly trying to flirt with Isabelle, the timid servant who always looks afraid of the two stupid brothers, and takes care of her son, Sebastien.
• I hate Graham, he’s emotionally unaware but thinks he isn’t, he’s creepy and aggressive, he acts like a dumbass, but he looks like 31 year old Paul Rudd with curly hair and glasses, which counts for something, I think? I’m not enjoying this movie.
• This is very odd, this movie, I’m not sure why it exists or why Paul Rudd and Romany Malco went to France and made this weird sad cringe comedy about struggling to sell a house.
• Inevitably both of them start hitting on Isabelle and Paul Rudd feels as if he’s entitled to her, clearly, he rants at his therapist about her until he acts very forward and unlikable. And yet there’s still 30 minutes left to go, it keeps on going once he tries to kiss her and she dives away faster and further than any woman I’ve ever seen avoid a kiss.
• Though it does lead to this blissfully unaware and funny line from this idiot Graham to his therapist: “She played me like a fool, man! She played me like a Stradivarius. It’s like I have so much love to give, and every time I try to put myself out there I fuck it up or someone comes in and usurps me and that someone happens to be my brother.” You idiot. She doesn’t like either of you at all.
• There are things in this that have the capacity to be funny and interesting, but I want to bludgeon the main characters to death.
• Graham gets very drunk and makes a massive ass of himself in front of everyone, saying worse things than Romany Malco yelled at them when they tried to trick potential buyers into not buying the house. Because he wants to think he’s a good person, but he’s one of those “nice guys” who’s actually the worst guy.
• Surprise appearance from Donal Logue as an even worse person who wants to turn the Chateau into a multi-tier party mansion, like the Saltburn house. Ugh.
• With seventeen minutes to go, we get a twist. The Butler, Jean, is not the Butler, Jean, but the Great-Uncle, who had no money, and decided to fake his death for the insurance money, and, in an additional twist I saw coming miles away, Isabelle wants neither men because she is Fake Jean’s lover and Sebastien is his child. I think somehow he didn’t know this would trigger the letter being sent to the brothers. He yells at the two brothers, calls them out for being terrible and disregarding the humanity of the servants, while also calling them fragile and simple. But then Jean dies for real. He doesn’t though, he fakes his death again with Isabelle’s help. And Isabelle leaves for Barcelona with her son. So Donal Logue doesn’t get his pad, and the Chateau is left to the servants, somehow rendering the insane debts irrelevant.
• I am glad Isabelle realized what a controlling tool the Great-Uncle was and left. And Paul Rudd gets his shoes back, but it’s only been a week? Damn.

Overall Rating: 3/10(I mean, it’s a movie I watched. It’s weird because it feels like a weird French dramedy, but also Paul Rudd and Romany Malco are in it and learn nothing, so there’s no real point for any of it.)
Rudd Rating: 5.5/10(He looks good. That’s mostly it.)

The Shape of Things(2003) stars Paul Rudd, Rachel Weisz, Gretchen Mol, and Frederick Weller. It was written and directed by Neil LaBute.

This is based on a play of the same name, made by the same guy. I believe Paul Rudd was the only one also in it, but I’m too put off by watching The Château to confirm it. This one is about a guy who enters a new relationship and is encouraged to change most things about him by his new girlfriend.

• The songs in this movie are all by Elvis Costello. An interesting choice, for sure.
• Paul Rudd looks extra nerdy in this, purposefully, he’s got the tweed jacket, the vest, the glasses, the greasy, pasted hair, he looks quite a bit like Rick Moranis. I think they flattened his nose somehow.
• We open on a rebellious Rachel Weisz stepping over the line at a museum to spray paint a penis on a statue of God that’s had a plaster leaf added in front of the penis for public decency.
• Pretty soon she’s encouraging him to change his hair, she’s spraypainting his jacket, which looks nice, to leave her phone number, she’s trying to change him, how he dresses and acts. Except she dresses like the anarchist college art student she is, grungy and early 2000’s, so who is she to be coaching people on their looks. Though she’s right, he looks like a complete dweeb, and twitches around like one. He might have gained a bit of weight, he often makes it look as if he has a double chin.
• The next time we see them they’re waiting to see a play and already talking like they’ve been dating for months. It’s a very odd film. I mean, first of all, it looks much better than The Château. But you can really tell it’s a play adaptation. The dialogue is stilted, you can see some blurry extras in the background, but none of the main characters interact with them, it feels like a staged production and the characters are that little bit more eccentric.
• This movie is sort of the Ship of Theseus. If you change everything about a person, replace every wooden plank and aspect of the ship, is is still the Ship of Theseus? Is it still the extra quirky Paul Rudd?
• The movie was billed as being about Paul Rudd changing and his friends being confused as to why he’s become such a different person. What isn’t said is that his friends are unlikable prudes and very quickly Phillip, Paul’s former roommate, is revealed to be a major asshole. So when Rachel Weisz gets into an argument with him about the museum penis being in the newspaper, I just realize I don’t care about any of these characters. They made Paul look unattractive somehow.
• Phillip is played by Frederick Weller, a character actor who primarily plays assholes. Like, for instance, the bad distant father in The Fundamentals of Caring.
• Each scene takes place weeks apart.
• Rachel Weisz films her and Paul having sex and having a fight, and I can’t imagine that won’t come back as part of one of her art installations or something. Also, Phillip’s fiancé, Jenny, liked Paul Rudd originally but he never made a move. Wonder if that’ll come back in to play too. Phillip wants to have an underwater wedding with Jenny. Are those things?
• Oh, now he just looks like Paul Rudd. And his nose looks different, too.
• Paul Rudd is madly in love, more in love than a regular person is, and and it takes Jenny to realize Evelyn, Rachel Weisz’s character’s initials, are EAT. Meanwhile Jenny is hitting on him pretty badly, desperately hating Phillip but not wanting to say it, so she makes out with him on the playground. As ageless as Paul Rudd is meant to be, he does look like a 31 year old in this, not someone who’s currently in college.
• Now he’s getting his nose changed. He does have way more chemistry with Gretchen Mol, who plays Jenny, than he does Rachel Weisz, which I think is the intention. Oh ew, he got her initials tattooed by his penis.
• Oddly Phillip cares more that Paul Rudd is wearing a different jacket and had a nose job than he does that Paul made out with his fiancé. I liked that one too, though.
• The play movie has devolved into a series of two person scenes between a variety of the characters, and what’s interesting is the scene between Evelyn and Jenny is at first, Evelyn doesn’t seem to be aware of what she’s doing to Paul. Of course she’s a very vindictive, unlikeable person. She may have changed Paul Rudd, made him lose 21 pounds, change his wardrobe, stop chewing his fingernails, get a nose job, and get a better haircut. But when she finds out about him and Jenny, she gets revenge by having sex with Phillip. And he’s so stuck in this that he doesn’t dump her, he just says he’ll do anything she says ever, which makes her say “Get rid of your friends and choose me”.
• Of course he does. If I start losing weight will I look 31 year old Paul Rudd? It’s a goal, for sure.
• It all culminates at Rachel Weisz’s senior exhibition or whatever. Gretchen Mol has broken it off with Phillip, and Paul has proposed to Rachel Weisz. Of course, surprise surprise, Paul is her exhibition, her Human Sculpture. She sculpted him through, as she puts it, her two favorite materials, flesh and will. “This I’m afraid was not done out of love or care or concern. This was a simple matter of ‘Can I instill X amount of change in this creature using only manipulation as my palette knife?’” she says in front of a photo of Paul indeed looking chubbier and grosser, though I think that was touched up.
• What is interesting about this whole thing, as fucked up as it is and as insane as it is, is we’re never let in to her true intentions as a person. So she could very well have had this sociopathic plan from day one. Or she always saw the world differently, as displayed in her previous conversations about art, and she was indeed hurt that he was never honest about Jenny and lied and told people he’d fallen, not gotten a nose job. What’s funny about all of this is Phillip is just kind of laughing in the corner.
• But when he leaves this very public embarrassment, Paul says nothing. I mean, she is very much a sociopath. This is not art. Of course, nobody joins her at the gallery afterward, that’s a fucked up thing to do, and normal people wouldn’t find that appealing. You shouldn’t do this to a person, even if it makes them look like Paul Rudd and reveals their friend is a scumbag. They argue at the gallery after and she says “Tell me if I’ve done something wrong. If you hadn’t come here, nothing would have changed, it would still be real for you, therefore it was real. It wasn’t real to me, therefore it wasn’t. That’s how my art works, that’s the whole point.” She’s saying this like this proves something, like she has the moral authority, because she truly believes what she’s talking about, but she isn’t proving anything, or doing anything meaningful, she’s just being a cruel, fucked-up, unlikeable person because she wants to be, that’s how she sees herself.
• Anyway, it ends with Paul a broken, hotter man. Interesting, I guess? Hmmm.

Overall Rating: 6/10(I can’t say I hated this. I also can’t say I wanted to keep watching it, so it’s not a complete win, is it?)
Rudd Rating: 8/10(It’s a good performance, and worth it to see him become more attractive as it goes.)

Two Days(2003) stars Paul Rudd, Adam Scott, Donal Logue, Mackenzie Astin, Adam Sztykiel, Marguerite Moreau, Joshua Leonard, Lourdes Benedicto, Caroline Aaron and Graham Beckel. It was directed by Sean McGinly and written by Sean McGinly and Karl Wiedergott.

So, we’ve got a fairly dark one to finish our depressing low-budget journey. The synopsis is as follows: Paul Miller has struggled as an actor in Hollywood for years, and now he’s had enough. In two days, he’s going to kill himself. But in true Hollywood style, he’s hired a film crew to chronicle his last moments. Whew. Sounds like a lot.

• Right off the bat, Paul Miller, Paul’s character, tells the audience he’ll be dead in two days, and we’re treated to a very young Adam Scott in a tracksuit with weird, tinted goggle glasses.
• It’s already, off the bat, a weird off-kilter semi-mockumentary, and Adam’s overly dramatic Stu, the director, tells us his plan is to show Paul through the power of his film that he should keep living.
• I mean it’s a very odd premise for a movie, and a very extremely dark one, that Paul is so tired of trying to be an actor after ten years that he just wants to be done. I am very interested to see how it ends.
• His friends and ex-girlfriends don’t understand where he’s coming from on this, even though he has repeatedly said this isn’t a call for help and he just wants to be done, they think he wants them to just pat him on the back and say they love him. And he’s just looking for attention. Of course, all his friends are vapid weirdos. And the cameramen are stupid layabouts who have never really done something like this before. Again, I can’t overemphasize what a weird viewing experience this is. But Adam Scott, as always, knows how to play this specific kind of character, and does so with such sincerity. I love Stu. He’s a weirdo.
• Oh, hey, it’s Donal Logue again! This guy’s everywhere! In two of these movies, at least.
• Stu’s wife is also on the crew, and she wants Stu to have a family with her and she’s having a hard time, but he doesn’t care at all, he only cares about making this documentary. When Paul runs into Donal Logue, playing an old producer friend of Paul’s, and Donal tells him he’ll give him a gig on Monday, Stu gets excited and thinks that Paul is gonna just gonna be okay and do that instead, but of course he’s not.
• I have some knowledge of the kind of torment he’s going through, though I’ve never personally felt it and I can’t fully comprehend it, but I can understand the “Just not wanting to go on anymore” as much as I can understand the other characters not getting why this sudden depression is so in control of him and he can’t just see that all this prep makes it seem as if he’s just making a show of it to get attention or make a joke of it. Clearly it doesn’t seem like that’s his intention or what he’s doing, he’s playing it straight and very matter-of-fact about it all, but he is also very clear that he hasn’t really given much thought as of yet to how he’s going to do it. He doesn’t play it like someone who’s very depressed and just ready to be done, which actually makes a good amount of sense when you think about it. He’s unburdened and happy because he’s made a decision and thinks it’s all about to be over. It’s interesting.
• I should be depressed by this, it’s a very dark topic, it should be a depressing film, and I have many reasons to be freaked out by it, but I do like a good dark comedy and this is a very interesting one. The writing is very good too. There’s a good shot of him in an old swords and sandals style play in a long wig giving a big speech.
• I’m actually really enjoying this, I’m not surprised it hasn’t gotten enough good reviews to break through the obscurity it’s fallen into in the last 23 years, it’s a very niche, dark kind of movie, but of the three films, it’s the only one I’m actually happy I own.
• On his last day, Paul dons a wonderful corduroy and his agent gets him an audition that he kills, but he doesn’t get the audition because they think he’s too old. Paul acts like he doesn’t care, but he’s visibly upset when he hears.
• Stu decides to call in Paul’s parents. His mom wants to know what she’s done wrong and his dad wants to eat at “the restaurant where they had that Jewish lunchmeat”. Paul’s gay friend, who is famous currently for being in a daytime soap opera that housewives love, shows up and gets roped into dinner with the parents and Paul. Paul gets frustrated as hell sitting at dinner with his very annoying parents who “had to fly six hours continental to rescue their son from his delusions”. Paul breaks down and says it was a joke and Stu took it too far, and it’s hard to tell if he’s being honest or if he’s overwhelmed and trying to get out of it. He has a great heart to heart with his dad. His mom continues to nag because she doesn’t know how to get through to him while his dad genuinely cares.
• We’ve passed the 48 hour mark, it’s Saturday. Stu thinks he’s saved everything and he’s going over to Paul’s house to pick him up and see Paul’s parents off at the hotel. I’m apprehensive. But first it seems Stu is definitely going to get dumped if he can get over his beef with the cameraman. There are lots of good little side bits in this. Like since Paul thinks he’s done he bought the crew leather jackets so they all look like a band from the 70’s.
• Paul’s still alive. Though I suspect now his parents have left, his plans won’t have changed. And we still have 32 minutes to go, so I don’t know what else the plot would be about now.
• Oh yeah, his plans haven’t changed. He’s gone too far, he doesn’t want this to be for nothing.
• And Stu is mad because apparently the sound guy had sex with his girlfriend, so there’s another dun shot of the whole crew filming Adam destroying the boom mic. Then he screams at everyone, verbally assaults the “Camera hogging asshole”.
• Stu storms out, calls Paul a coward and then tries one last time to get him to see his thinking. Then the rest of the crew leaves, except for one guy.
• At sunrise he sets out to be done, to fill his car with exhaust like a guy at an auto shop told him to do the day before. At the last second he opens the car door and the guy who stayed helps him get to the hospital, where he sees his ex-girlfriend, who’s been starring in a Spike Lee TV series. I like the idea that Spike Lee would make a TV show back then.
• He checks himself out of the hospital after having a nice talk with a woman who saw him in Family Matters. He takes the bus down to the beach, wearing only his hospital gown (His clothes are gone) and he’s followed by one of the cameramen. “How do you feel?” The cameraman asks. “I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna pay off those credit card bills.” (For the jackets and cameras) And with that the movie ends. I honestly really liked this. It’s dark and weird, but everyone comes at it with the right attitude, and it really works. It’s also one of his best performances. Wow. So worth this whole post, honestly. Even if I am a sucker for Paul Rudd and Adam Scott.

Overall Rating: 8/10(Really good stuff. I honestly did not know what to think when I bought this one. It’s an honest satire of what it’s like to be in Hollywood, what it’s like to be depressed, and at the end, like Stu wanted, it’s life affirming.)
Rudd Rating: 9/10(One of his best performances. I really enjoyed this.)

Well that was quite the mixed bag of films. Next month we dive deeper down the rabbit hole of weird obscure Ruddage with another batch of low budget indies. Will any of them be as good as Two Days? Probably not, I’d say.