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Spot Reviews: Film Critics Tackle TV Ads



If Hollywood types are going to bank on their silver screen credentials by shooting TV commercials, shouldn't their ads be judged accordingly? In the second installment of Spot Reviews, we sic rabid movie critics on the omnipresent Gap commercial for boyfriend trousers (above) starring Claire Danes and Patrick Wilson and directed by the team behind Oscar darling Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Set to the classic Irving Berlin show tune "Anything You Can Do," Danes and Wilson have a modern dance-off in their undies and fight over khakis.

We asked Jeff Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere, Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, and Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune to rate the Dayton and Faris effort. (The husband and wife duo directed ads for Ikea, Target, and Apple as well as episodes of the cult classic HBO series Mr. Show before falling into the Gap.) The reviews after the jump ...

Jeff Wells: The Dayton-Faris Gap commercial is winning—not that complex or avant-garde, but it's very likable in a familiar Tin Pan Alley sense.

Roger Moore: Dayton and Faris made a simpler-than-simple, charming, romantic spot. But TV is a close-up medium; film is long-shot/medium-shot. Longer shots made their punch line work [in this commercial], but the spot is blasé until we realize, "Oh, it's Claire and Patrick." The "charming" bit is all that connects their commercials with Little Miss Sunshine's style, which is more edgy-cute. The stars carry it.

Colin Covert: Despite a surprise finale (spoiler alert!) revealing that girls can rip the boyfriend trouser off their fella's torso like a magician whisking a tablecloth off a fully set table, this is an undernourished flopperetta. Claire Danes's self-congratulatory prancing is reprehensible.

The Final Verdict: Like the schlumpy, undistinguished boyfriend trouser, this commercial is not a beau you want to take home to mother. Two out of five stars.

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