No Address left me absolutely baffled. The film desperately wants to say something about the homeless epidemic in America. What it ends up saying is… there is a homeless epidemic in America. All the good intentions in the world can’t make up for a lack of focus or the absence of a coherent plot. An eclectic cast is forced to overact wildly as they try to find meaning in a film that has none.
Most of the characters live in a Los Angeles encampment. Among them are drug addict Violet (R&B singer Ashanti), old man Harris (Xander Berkeley), who’s seen it all, drifting foster child Lauren (Isabella Ferreira), dementia-stricken former actress Dora (Beverly D’Angelo), and fugitive Jimmy (Lucas Jade Zumann). Then there’s Robert (William Baldwin), a struggling real estate agent hoping to kick these people off a lot he desperately needs to rent, so he doesn’t become, well, an assumption. If that wasn't enough, the film also features Bloodrayne star Kristanna Loken as Robert's wife, and, oddly, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host Ty Pennington as a hardware store owner.
Director: Julia Verdin
Writers: David M. Hyde, James J. Papa, Julia Verdin
Stars: William Baldwin, Xander Berkeley, Beverly D'Angelo
The characters aren't people, they're message delivery systems. The amateurish script burdens them with stilted dialogue meant to comment on how hard it is to be homeless. Each of them also comes with an individual arc that plays out to a predictable, cliché-filled conclusion. Jimmy left home because his mother chose her alcoholic boyfriend over him. Robert and his family might end up losing their home because he's terrible at his job. (Oh, the dramatic irony!) You get the idea.
Off to the sidelines is a silly subplot involving a group of criminals repeatedly trying to steal everyone else's food stamp cards. That's on top of the unnecessary romance between Jimmy and Lauren, plus a forced religious component. It would have been nice if the film had chosen one path and stayed there, rather than trying to include something from almost every film genre.
For a film that so openly expresses concern for the homeless, No Address oddly trivializes the problem by presenting it in a shallow, melodramatic way. It completely lacks nuance, from the autopilot way of narrating to the annoyingly cheesy soundtrack that constantly tells you how you're supposed to feel. Every minute of the film is a virtual beating to the viewer. Worst of all, it offensively relies on a deus ex machina to solve the group's problem in the end. Apparently, the homeless epidemic has a silver bullet.
No Address is so relentlessly maudlin that it sometimes becomes unintentionally funny, which is obviously not the reaction one wants, given the serious subject matter. The film doesn't tell you anything about the homeless that you don't already know, nor does it provide any new perspective on the issue. In reality, it's just two hours in which the filmmakers pat themselves on the back for their social conscience.
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