APPLESAUCE (review)

Review by Joshua Gravel

In Applesauce we meet Ron, who has decided to come clean about the worst thing he’s ever done and ends up telling his wife Nikki and their best friends, Kate and husband Les.

Ron explains a series of events which lead him to unintentionally cutting another man’s fingers off when he was in college.

This leads to a chain reaction of the others wanting to know the worst thing each other had done which causes some major strain on the relationships and friendships.

If that were not all, suddenly Ron starts to receive body parts as anonymous gifts, first in the mail then by other means.

With mounting problems at work, in his home life, and stressed friendships, Ron begins to go a little mad as he can’t figure out who is leaving him body parts. And even more disconcerting is that the others around him either don’t care or make little effort to help figure out who is leaving them.

Onur Tukel’s new film Applesauce is certainly an interesting watch and is an entertaining film, but it seems a bit uneven. The majority of the story has a somewhat light and funny tone ,but then the scenes concerning Kate and Les become overly dramatic and serious to the point of slowing the film down. The performances are certainly good overall, even if the tone of the scenes doesn’t necessarily fit together.

The film is shot very well and the New York City street locations look wonderful.

You can tell right off the bat that director Onur Tukel is doing his homage to Woody Allen and it works well. From the street locations, the rambling conversations, the overly philosophical characters, and even the jazz interludes, Applesauce plays as a strange quirky thriller by way of Woody Allen.

Only not coming off as pretentious.

Even though I found the tone of the film uneven and film’s mystery a bit too predictable, I would certainly recommend checking out Applesauce, especially if you enjoyed Tukel’s previous vampire comedy, Summer Of Blood.