A series of urban legends take place around the life of a troubled man who is searching New York City for a mysterious stranger.
Urbania (2000)
Director: Jon Shear
Writer: Daniel Reitz
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2000
Duration: 103 min
Stars: Dan Futterman, Scott Denny, Paige Turco, Alan Cumming, Josh Hamilton
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Futterman gives a strong performance as an insomniatic homosexual man trying to come to grips with the loss of a lover during one stressed out evening in New York City with the novelty of daylight savings time giving him an extra hour of redemption as he seeks retribution and only adding fuel to the fire by striking up conversations with urban legends mixed with anomie and angst. Original script by director Jon Shear and Daniel Reitz is crafty in its depiction of the darker side of one’s mind and the lengths one can go to in a downward spiral with reminiscent tones to Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’ of Gotham as a limbo to hell.
Storyline
Charlie takes an odyssey through grief during a fall weekend in New York City. His encounters are planned and chance: with a homeless man who sleeps by his building, with a friend who’s dying, with the couple who lives (and noisily loves) in the flat above him, with a bartender and a one-night-stand he follows home, and with a tattooed stranger whom he seeks out and befriends. Along the way, Charlie inhabits a city full of moments of violence and of stories and legends: a kidney thief, a microwaved poodle, a rat in a hot dog bun, a baby left on a car top, a tourist’s toothbrush, needles in public-phone change slots. Charlie lives and tells his own stories. What caused his melancholy?