The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
Splendor
Comedy · Romance · 1999
Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?
Movie details
Splendor
“Explore the possibilities...”
1999 Comedy · Romance 1h 33m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.2 / 10
Community rating
Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Splendor?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Bold performer Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent financial need, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this attraction, the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her dearest occupation — flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.
Starting Over
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After divorcing his ambitious singer wife, a middle-aged man begins a new relationship with a teacher.
Desperados
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A panicked young woman and her two best friends fly to Mexico to delete a ranting email she sent to her new boyfriend. On arrival, they run into her former beau, who soon gets caught up in their frantic scheme.
Someone Like You...
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How to Be Single
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New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, and what Alice, Robin, Lucy, Meg, Tom and David all have in common is the need to learn how to be single in a world filled with ever-evolving definitions of love.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Gregg Araki
Written by
Gregg Araki
Kathleen Robertson
Veronica
Johnathon Schaech
Abel
Matt Keeslar
Zed
Kelly Macdonald
Mike
Eric Mabius
Ernest
D
Dan Gatto
Mutt
Linda Kim
Alison
Court is in session
Put Splendor on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.