This movie had one hell of a harrowing premise: a young woman is imprisoned in a tiny garden shed for seven years, together with her five-year-old son Jack born as a result of her captor’s visits. In order to create some kind of semblance of normality for the boy, she pretends that the 10 square metres they’re trapped in is in fact the entire world, that beyond the walls and the roof window there’s nothing but outer space, that the humans he sees on TV are make-believe.
Tag: movie
The Danish Girl – Film Review
Based on a true story of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo sexual reassignment surgery in 1920s, The Danish Girl is unfortunately too wispy, sentimental and suffocatingly conventional to do its subject justice.
Spotlight – Film Review
It’s rather hard to judge a film like Spotlight. The topic of child abuse and cover-up within the Catholic Church is extremely powerful and arouses strong emotions, and the film boasts an exceptional ensemble cast (Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci) who all put in good performances. At the same time, there’s nothing particularly exceptional about the way the movie’s made – it has no visual flair and while the characters were solid none of them really grabbed me. To someone who sees visuals and characters as two of the main pleasures of the cinema it’s a serious drawback. Yet one can also argue that the film’s drabness, unfussy cinematography and lack of focus on one particular character works in its favour, grounding it in a way that a more flashy approach wouldn’t and putting the focus back on the larger topic and the process of investigation.
Carol – Film Review
Carol is a beautiful, lavish, sensual and moving love story set in the 1950s New York. It opens with a scene in a restaurant where two women are interrupted by the friend of one of them. We don’t know what’s going in the scene, yet right off the bat there’s a strange sense of intimacy between the two, and a feeling that their conversation is important. This subtle, nuanced play of emotions and mood is what’s ultimately the movie’s greatest pleasure, along with the gorgeous cinematography and period re-creation and some truly fabulous clothes.
The Big Short – Film Review
Despite its bland boring title and a subject matter that doesn’t interest me in the least, this was probably the funniest movie about how greed, stupidity and self-interest ruin the world and nobody can do a bloody thing about it.
The Revenant – Film Review
Based on a true story, The Revenant is a grim, bloody, yet beautifully shot story of revenge and endurance that ultimately left me cold (no pun intended).
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – further impressions
I went and saw The Force Awakens again. My first reaction was incredibly mixed bordering on negative, but then I found that some of the better elements got stuck in my head in a way a merely mediocre movie simply wouldn’t manage. So I wanted to find out if this was a movie with huge massive problems I could still really like (like Prometheus), or whether its good aspects are ultimately overwhelmed by the flaws. After watching it again I think it’s definitely the former, because otherwise this giant post wouldn’t happen, but I also got a better idea of why so many things about it feel unsatisfying, particularly in the light of some discussions on the internets that sprung up after the movie’s release.
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
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MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOY!
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Film Review
In a nutshell, despite some winning performances and energetic direction of J.J. Abrams, the movie falls short due to mediocre writing and some of the common problems plaguing many of the modern blockbusters. I was hoping that it would be a lot like Abrams’ first Star Trek film, which I adored to bits despite its story/villain shortcomings, but unfortunately it felt more like a companion movie to Star Trek: Into Darkness: never boring, but ultimately hollow.
Junebug – Film Review
I generally enjoy the movies about dysfunctional families, and I liked this one a lot despite its annoying artsy pretensions. Maybe Juno is to blame, but it just bugs me when a movie practically waves arms at you and cries, oooh look at me, look at me and how quirky I am oooh! Just so you know how different I am, let’s open with a random scene of people yodeling! Fortunately, the movie had enough strong character writing and acting to compensate for the eye-rolling bits.
The Dressmaker – Film Review
This movie’s been out for seven weeks or so, and I half-expected to be shoved in a tiny theatre, but instead it screened in one of the largest ones, which was a bit strange. I guess it’s the film’s last hurrah before Force Awakens takes over 95% of the world’s cinemas in two days’ time.
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