DAYS AND NIGHTS  (2014)

ROLE:  Johan, an estate caretaker

GENRE: Drama/comedy

COUNTRY: USA

RELEASE: September 26, 2014

 
Synopsis

The film centers around a fading movie star, who brings her paramour to her lakeside estate to visit her family on Memorial Day weekend. The setting is rural Connecticut in the 1980s. The household includes her ailing brother, her artist son, his ethereal muse, the family doctor, the estate's custodian, the careless caretaker (Nyqvist) and his wife, their temperamental daughter and her long-suffering ornithologist husband. During the weekend, a disastrous turn of events leads the family from dysfunction to heartbreak and, ultimately, salvation.

 
Cast & Credit Details

Katie Holmes - Alex
William Hurt - Herb
Christian Camargo - Peter
Jean Reno - Louis
Mark Rylance - Stephen
Allison Janney - Elizabeth
Michael Nyqvist - Johan
Russell Means - Big Jim
Cherry Jones - Mary
Juliet Rylance - Eva
Ben Whishaw - Eric

* * * * *

Director - Christian Camargo
Screenplay - Christian Camargo
Cinematography - Steve Cosens
Music - Claire van Kampen

* * * * *

92 minutes

 
Production Notes & Photos:

Filming began in early May 2012 in an abandoned theater camp in the woods of Kent, Connecticut and lasted for about five weeks. The production company rented several large homes in Kent, and also rented hotel space for the crew in New Milford and Brookfield.
 

 
Publicity Stills
 
Commentary

"At best the characters recall the wry peculiarity of a John Irving story. More often, though, Camargo aims so high he inevitably falls short. He was inspired by Anton Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull, and there’s simply too much stagy pretension in the tiresome speeches and self-conscious eccentricity."   ...Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Post

"Janney is beautifully caustic and vain, Whishaw is properly infuriating, Hurt is colorfully daft and Nyqvist all but steals the movie with his bemused, fractured line readings and droll arched eyebrow at all these artsy city folk."   ...Film critic Roger Moore

"The big mystery of Days and Nights is how actor Camargo's rookie directorial effort attracted such an eminent cast. There has been a positive surfeit of Chekhov productions on New York stages recently, most of them abysmal, but none has been as bad as this "adaptation." Straining for a Chekhovian mix of farce and tragedy, Camargo completely lacks the delicate empathy and emotional power of the Russian master that made his plays' quicksilver transitions in mood so breathtakingly effective. Camargo’s attempts at comedy are embarrassing and the dramatic moments even more so, in a way which makes you pity the actors."  ...David Noh, Film Journal

"The cast list for Days and Nights is so juicy that I approached the movie with lip-smacking expectations of scenery being chewed and spit out with histrionic gusto. Even at its worst, how bad could an updated version of the play be. The answer is worse than you could imagine. The truncated shambles on the screen is evidence, if any more proof were needed, that great actors can go only so far  to salvage an artistic shipwreck."  ...Stephen Holden, NY Times

"Despite a talented ensemble cast, it’s difficult to invest emotionally in these lugubrious characters and their various avenues of depression and dysfunction."   ...Todd Jorgenson, cinemalogue.com

"Eventually, the whole movie falls into the rift between those two modes. The characters are so distant from one another that it becomes difficult to understand who they are and what they want, and the ellipses fortifying the film’s mood are left to carry more weight than they can. Camargo all but ditches the creative self-reflection that courses through Chekhov’s play, and his adaptation fails to recognize that a portrait of unrequited love requires a heartbeat in order to hurt."    ...David Ehrlich, the Dissolve

"Days and Nights has a dreamy cast, but its shift from late 19th-century Russia to a New England country estate in 1984 forces the director to shoehorn his characters and story into Chekhov's template. The results are predictably mixed. Those who are familiar with the comedic drama are likely to find Carmago's ideas interesting, if a bit obligatory, while those who have neither read nor seen The Seagull may just come away thinking of it as a pretentious art film.  ...Anders Wright, The San Diego Tribune