Official Synopsis:
Would you sacrifice it all to find true love?  When Cheyenne decides to move away from Paris for a less complicated life in the countryside, she leaves behind the woman she loves.  And though the two do everything they can to forget about one another, they find it’s not that easy. Looking fro Cheyenne is a contemporary tale about the fragility of modern life, the need to make changes, and the power to love.
  
Our Take:
Looking for Cheyenne is a simplistic tale about the superficiality of modern life, the need of character development, and the power of love.

This film is chock full of dime store philosophizing that feels beyond forced.  Of all the social agendas pushed by the characters in the film, none is given any weight by the filmmaker.  Whenever a supporting character speaks, one could insert the voice of the teacher from Peanuts and not miss a beat concerning the story of the film.  The crux of the action is that a schoolteacher and her quirky lover break-up, the latter going to the countryside to live a non-commercialized life (aka hippie commune: population three) and find happiness.  Meanwhile the teacher tries to move on by entering a fast-moving relationship with another woman who she gets disgusted with because she doesn’t love her after a whopping two dates or so. 

The film is only 87 minutes long so it doesn’t take us long to get to the part where the teacher chases down her ex in the countryside, a reunion cut short by the ex’s irrational fear/aversion of/to cars.  But, not to fear, we are treated with a Love Conquers All moment within the next few minutes anyway, but not before the disillusioned teacher lashes out at a group of superficially idealistic youths.  In terms of technical aspects of this film, everything is merely rudimentary; the lighting and costume design are “natural,” meaning not of consequence.  The most artistic the direction gets is in the opening where we are treated to random flashing traffic lights that I hope has a wonderfully deep meaning to the director other than an exercise in artistic tedium. 

There are no real special features on this release as only a photo gallery and trailer are included.  Looking for Cheyenne is a trite little film with only the most basic of things to say about love, things which have been said a million times before in the various arts, and said with more artistic ingenuity at that.

Overall Picture:
Movie: D+
DVD:   C

- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer