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Farran Smith Nehme

Forfatter af Missing Reels

5+ Works 81 Members 4 Reviews

Værker af Farran Smith Nehme

Associated Works

Noir City Annual No. 14 (2022) — Bidragyder — 5 eksemplarer
NOIR CITY Magazine #36 (2022) — Bidragyder — 2 eksemplarer
The Wole Town's Talking Booklet (Indicator Series 172) (2020) — Bidragyder — 1 eksemplar

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Nehme, Farran Smith
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On the advice of Entertainment Weekly, I was really excited to pick this book up and relive the golden age of Hollywood. Ceinwen Reilly is shop girl living in 1980's New York and she is obsessed with old movies. She finds out her downstairs neighbor Miriam may have starred in the lost classic The Mysteries of Udolpho. I enjoyed reading more about Miriam's past and the lost movie than the relationship between Ceinwen and her unlikeable love interest Matthew. The lost movie is supposed to be based on the real book The Mysteries of Udolpho which actually sounded more interesting than this one turned out to be. I am not a classic movie buff, although I do enjoy them, so a lot of references went over my head. It was a fairly enjoyable story but it felt like it could have been more.… (mere)
 
Markeret
arielfl | 3 andre anmeldelser | Dec 24, 2015 |
Missing Reels is a detective story. It's not necessarily advertised as such, and the heroine doesn't think of herself as a detective, but that's what the story is about. Ceinwen is an old-movie fan in 1980s New York City, and when she discovers that an elderly neighbor once starred in a now-lost silent film, she takes it upon herself to track it down. Ceinwen is convinced that the film still exists somewhere, and she encounters a lot of different old-hollywood types as she searches for it - there's the general fans, obsessive fans, the collectors, the restorers, people involved with the film on the studio side, and those who were part of the specific film's creation.

The detectiving side of Missing Reels is rather engrossing and fun, though sometimes the constant movie references felt a little bit inside-baseball to me, and I'm a fan of the old black-and-whites. I enjoyed the way mostly each person Ceinwen encountered had a different perspective of the silents and the particular film she's looking for. I think that is part of what made the plot enjoyable to me, trying to guess what the next person on Ceinwen's list would say, or even who that next person would be in relation to the movies.

Ultimately, despite the obsessive search on Ceinwen's part, we are never shown the film in question or even contemporary responses to it, and I think that's a bit fitting. When questioned about her reason for investigating, rather than tell the truth, Ceinwen repeats someone else's theory that lost films are an ideal form of cinema - "the films that are lost are much better in our minds than the ones we actually have".

As engrossing as I found the detectiving for the lost film, the romance side of Missing Reels was completely flat. I appreciated that Nehme didn't info-dump all about the two leads, but I could never quite figure out what Ceinwen and Matthew saw in each other - especially since Ceinwen hated him at their first meeting. Ceinwen is a cipher as a character, her major defining characteristics being an interest in old movies and vintage fashion, having grown up in Mississippi with her Granana, and an inability to eat food. Matthew is a mathematician postdoc at NYU, originally from England, and eight years older than Ceinwen. He also has an Italian long-distance girlfriend.

I don't have a problem with Matthew's girlfriend, especially when it's established that she's okay with him "playing around" while they're separated. But he continually allowed Ceinwen to think that she was his priority, not the Italian woman, then treated her like a child. He policed her eating habits constantly, which was upsetting to me. The narrative already commented on Ceinwen's lack of eating, but Matthew emphasized it, making it overall extremely uncomfortable. He goes along with her to old movies and to search for the missing film, but it often feels like he's humoring her and isn't really interested in any of it, which made me wonder why he's even with her - the sex?

And then, I couldn't figure out why Ceinwen stayed with Matthew, since she hated him so much to start, and never liked that he already had a girlfriend. It's almost like she's using him for his connections to film collectors/fans in his NYU department, and then to further leads, and also he's tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and with a sexy accent. She breaks up with him at least twice, but lets herself be won over again, and I just couldn't see it.

Overall, Missing Reels isn't a bad book. It was an engrossing read and I did enjoy the plot. The romantic subplot, though, was awful, and I would have greatly preferred more time spent with the roommates Jim and Talmadge, or if Ceinwen had learned of the leads for the investigation herself by joining the old film fan groups (it's weird that in the two years of visiting revival movie houses in NYC, she never made friends with any other regulars).
… (mere)
 
Markeret
keristars | 3 andre anmeldelser | Jun 8, 2015 |
This novel, set in New York in the late 1980s, follows the plucky young Ceinwen (pronounced KINE-wen) Reilly as she attempts to pursue her dreams in the big city. Unfortunately, she's completely broke, so she lives with two roommates and works for a terrible boss at a vintage clothing store. But Ceinwen remains dedicated to her love of vintage clothes and classic movies -- the older the better. She is also fascinated by her downstairs neighbor, Miriam, an older woman who is always poised, reserved, and impeccably dressed. Little by little, Ceinwen strikes up an acquaintance with Miriam and learns that she once starred in a silent movie that has since been lost. Ceinwen immediately becomes obsessed with the idea of finding the lost film, and with the help of a handsome British professor, she searches for anyone who might have a connection to the missing reels. In the course of her investigation, Ceinwen finds a community of fellow film nuts, a new romance, and possibly even a future career for herself.

I hate to say it, but this was one of my most disappointing reads of the year so far. The cover blurb makes the novel sound like a screwball romantic comedy, somewhat in the vein of "Bringing Up Baby" (which I love!). Suffice it to say, the book is nothing like that. There is very little humor in it, and Ceinwen is definitely not the effervescent, witty heroine I wanted her to be. Instead, she comes across as pushy and obsessive, practically stalking Miriam in order to get the inside scoop on her past life. I didn't like her or her love interest, who is insufferably smug and patronizing, so I definitely wasn't satisfied by the romance. And even as a fan of classic movies, I didn't find anything interesting about Ceinwen's quest to find the lost film. She goes around interviewing every person with even a remote connection to the film, asking questions she really has no business asking, and eventually the answer just plops into her lap. There's no tension, no real stakes to the investigation. Overall, this book was disappointing to me on many levels -- especially because I was hoping for something quite different.
… (mere)
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Markeret
christina_reads | 3 andre anmeldelser | Mar 22, 2015 |
This story is ostensibly about a young transplanted New Yorker, who has the attitude down pat; that is interested in old movies and meets a woman who acted in a long lost film and then begins a quest to find the movie. The only problem is that the main focus of the story is her job at a vintage clothing store and her love life; the actual quest doesn’t begin until ¾ of the story has finished. The atmosphere is well done, but the characters are too self-centered.

Free review copy.
 
Markeret
mrmapcase | 3 andre anmeldelser | Oct 21, 2014 |

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Værker
5
Also by
3
Medlemmer
81
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#222,754
Vurdering
½ 3.3
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4
ISBN
5

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