Roland's Mindful Women

Roland's Mindful Women

Bruce Von Stiers

I've reviewed a couple of films by director/producer Emmett Loverde. One of those was a short film about a marriage proposal approached as a business meeting. Both of the films were comedies.

I decided to check out another one of Loverde's comedy films. This one is titled She's Out of His Mind.

Judy is getting married in Las Vegas. And attending the wedding will be Roland. He once had a thing for the bride. Now Roland is stuck reliving every failed relationship. In his mind.

Sounds like a bit of craziness, right? Well, to top it off, Roland has an imaginary friend. That's right. Apparently, this friend is a duck. But the audience sees that it's a guy with a duck costume who is rude and smokes a cigar.

We meet Roland, and his imaginary friend in the opening scenes of the film. Roland is on a plane and interacts with a flight attendant. His imaginary friends tries to get Roland to ask the attendant out or something but Roland only succeeds in embarrassing himself.

Then we find Roland trying to find an alternate wedding gift than the one he brought with him. This leads him into a shop, whose owner is actually a member of the wedding party. This creates yet another embarrassing situation for Roland, but it ends somewhat harmless.

Besides his friend, Roland has something else unusual. He has a knack of being able to determine what a woman is really like by looking at her. When he does his thing, a text like box appears on the screen listing a woman's attributes or failings. An instance of this is when he's watching a woman on an interview show on TV in his hotel room. He determines she has a yappy dog and is a “seething cauldron of desire”.

Then Judy comes to his room to talk to him. But does she really? An interaction with a food delivery guy gives Roland some clarity. Maybe, sort of. Judy comes back and tells Roland that he's only imagining her being there. Maybe she's like his imaginary friend? Only a figment of his imagination?

Not only does Roland have several women roaming around in his brain, causing him havoc, interactions with women he encounters leads to awkward situations.

Then there's Lili, who keeps popping into his life. But she's only one of those figments of his imagination. But why? Why does she keep coming back? And there is Darlene. Who is she and why does Darlene matter so much to Roland?

There are a lot of other sequences with Roland and these women. But what does it all mean? What is the end result of all of this? Will Roland continue to be this hot mess and pine away for a lost love? Or more than one lost love? Or will he get his act together and find true love, or at least someone to find love with?

Roland was played by Bill Mendieta. From appearances on Days of Our Lives to Hector's Hell House, he has had a varied career. Mendieta was also in another film I recently reviewed, Girls Night In. And he won a Best Actor Broadway-World Award for his portrayal of Ricky Ricardo in the production of I Love Lucy: Live on Stage.

Judy was played by Jennifer Sielbel Newsom. Aside from acting in numerous films, Newsom is an award winning documentary producer and director. At this time, Newsom is the First Partner of California as her husband is the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

Amanda Noret played Lili. Her credits include her role as Madison Sinclair on the Veronica Mars television series, it's spin-off series Play It Again, Dick and the Veronica Mars feature film.

Tom Schanley played Roland's imaginary duck friend and the delivery guy. He's been in a ton of television episodes and a Mel Gibson film and one with Kelsey Grammar.

Kate Orsini was the flight attendant at the first of the film. Besides being on a couple of soap operas, she has had roles in NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles.

Other actors in the film were Juliet Grainger, Sabra Williams, Jill Nicole Kuirsky, Regan Payne and Douglas Neal.

Genevieve Zweig was Darlene. She also played a hotel maid and the gift shop owner, Irene.

One thing that I didn't mention earlier is that there was a narrator in some parts of the film. The narrator was supposed to be Roland's conscience. The narrator was Frank Loverde, Jr. He was in the film Evel Knievel and shows such as The Odd Couple and The Streets of San Francisco. He was also Emmett Loverde's father.

The scenes were primarily shot in and around Las Vegas. Additional footage was filmed in Santa Monica and Sherman Oaks, California.

The film was released in 2017. It had an earlier release a few years before that. But as Loverde explained, it was one of his first films, but it had technical issues. Later, having more film experience, and additional funding, those issues were fixed. And a few new things were added to the film, making it a more viable production. The film had a successful run at several film festivals upon its completion in 2017. I also learned that Frank Loverde, Jr. died that year, making She's Out of His Mind his final film performance.

She's Out of His Mind is an interesting comedy. It's a bit about lost love and a lot about self-discovery. Roland not being able to make a commitment, loving the wrong woman, or thinking his does, and generally failing at relationships is pretty much the drift of the plot. But when that final bit of self-discovery kicks in, the film moves from love lost to love found.

She's Out of His Mind is currently available on the streaming service Tubi. If you like comedies with a bit different kind of romantic slant, this is a film you should check out.

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