28 Hotel Rooms

A movie where nothing seems to happen while you're watching it, but leaves you thinking about it long after. Great acting--much of it improvised. I had a long-distance, bicoastal relationship with a boyfriend, and he and I used to meet halfway in hotels in another city. We never spent much time with each other in our "real lives", and the relationship eventually fell apart, because it never felt quite "real". This film could have been that relationship, to a TEE. It asks the question: what happens when a relationship is free of family, friends, work, daily stresses, and exists only in a controlled environment where you can explore a love that can only live within its own confines? After a while, does it stop being freeing and exciting and become stifling and imprisoning? The scene where Messina can't even open the windows brilliantly demonstrates how claustrophobic their relationship became, and how without outside influences, it was unable to grow. And (POSSIBLE SPOILER) a lot of people interpret the ending as too pat--that they're finally going to be together. But I saw it differently: I thought it them just talking about being together for real, at last, as they have before, but I didn't get the feeling it would actually happen. The sad little look Messina gives her at the end--you just feel like they know it's not going to happen. So I thought that was a sad, but appropriate, ending. And not for nothing, but Chris Messina is GORGEOUS in this film. Those lips, those eyes, that body---wow, so hot. He's an underrated actor and an unconventional sex symbol. The movie is worth watching for him alone.

I absolutely love this movie. From the moment it starts, it draws you in and the fact that there's very little music and no well-known actors in this make it so realistic and intimate; it truly feels like you're watching a real-life couple's story unfold. The emotions portrayed in this movie are so raw and real, and the actors are incredible in their roles. Two thumbs up!

This movie seems like it's going to be meaningful but then it falls very short. Even though we see Messina's character grow in the movie, as he falls in love with her and is open about it (suggesting for them to have a real relationship instead of the affair they are both having because he is a decent guy), the woman is just like "bleh". I don't even know if she hows up for the affair. We don't know what's in her mind. I kept thinking that she was going to have an epiphany, but she didn't. She does a lot of crying, but I don't know why she cries. I've never had an affair, but I don't think that I would be so cold if I had one.The affair goes on through the years. She has a baby and we don't know if the baby is Messina's, though it seemed like it. So, I don't understand...the woman is a horrible messed up human being void of emotions and other people's feelings. I could not sympathize with her for one second, even though she cried so much. She was just a bitch.Don't watch the movie even if you are having an affair...as the story progresses and Messina's character becomes more and more frustrated about the situation we see less sex. So, not even that. We just have to deal with his outbursts and her "bleh" and that wimpy smile always on her face. Like, seriously, why does she have that smile?It was intriguing...but it does not come out from those hotel rooms. Her character does not grow. Don't read the other reviews praising this movie either because these people are wrong.It has one of those endings that is inconclusive. They were planning on meeting within 6 months and it seemed like they were finally going to be together, but it does not convince me. Of course, she tells him some scenes before that last scene "I'm never going to leave him. I thought you knew" and so, because of that I don't think she would show up in 6 months a free woman.She claims to love her husband but she has this affair for years and probably the baby is not even her husband's baby. Everything wrong with this movie. Don't watch it. Not even for the sex scenes, it's not worth it.

O.K., I admit it, Chris Messina is one of my favorite actors. In this film, he also executive produces (whatever that means). In any event, what a story--I kept thinking this is so "French," a couple, one married, one not and they carry-on a relationship (he finally marries) which has something, they both don't know what, that endures for years--French, right? It is a bit of a role reversal in that the male (Messina), towards the end, wants more and the female is content (even with a child--his child?) to keep things as they are--yet, it isn't just the great sex they have, it is more layered than that--and this is where it may depart from the French formula. In France, we expect that the extramarital relationship is mostly cultural, a rite of passage, etc. In this film, the relationship becomes more--a lot more. Watching these two actors is fascinating. For the most part, their hotel meetings are almost always eagerly awaited, fun, flirty, improvised. And while there are some meltdowns--they cannot end it. There doesn't seem to be words or a category for what it is they have and while they indeed reflect and struggle with the ethics of it, trying to decide if it should continue, they never quite resolve or do they? There's some good acting here, e.g., Messina is raw, powerful, frustrated, angry when he discovers her husband is with her at one of their hotel meetings. She, on the other hand, is cool, calculated, measured. Good performances. Good story. Worth the time.

This is the story of two people who met, felt enough attraction to have a fling one night and not be honest enough to see that there was something significant between them. Rather than stopping and acknowledging this, the woman goes ahead and gets married and they continue their fling. They continue for years, have a child, end it for a while, and finally decide to hurt the ones they love. Wow! Talk about having your cake and eating it too. I didn't like these characters nor did I feel for them at any point. I kept wondering what their spouses were doing.