I really wanted to like this more, with its gorgeous cinematography and interesting characters, not to mention a mostly-offstage Greek chorus of fishermen singing sea shanties at random intervals, but its overstuffed plotline racing towards a conclusion only 90 minutes after it started gives the strong impression that the producers were unable to secure an 8-episode commitment from Amazon, and were forced to compress everything into a single movie timespan instead. It did not go well.
The characters are interesting, and one wants to follow them individually a bit more to learn their backgrounds. The problem is that there are so many interesting characters and so little time. A number of scenes along the way build to a tense finish, apparently intended as a cliffhanger that would have made a great ending to one episode and made us hungry for the next, but instead we have to rush headlong into the next scene to get on with things. The increasing complications along the way make the ending only more abrupt, with too many things left unexplained. (For example, why would a certain character feel the need to pull what would have to be a 200-pound floating container out of the sea, how would they physically manage it, what would they do with the contents, and why would they be cleaning it outside in plain sight of everyone passing by?)
This is the sort of Modern Gothic undertaking that Ozark (2017), for example, does so well, but they, in contrast, take the time to tell a story in detail and let us settle into it. This film rushes through a similar saga in 90 minutes, when a better approach would to either seek out a longer format, or at least unpack some of the baggage before making the trip.
The characters are interesting, and one wants to follow them individually a bit more to learn their backgrounds. The problem is that there are so many interesting characters and so little time. A number of scenes along the way build to a tense finish, apparently intended as a cliffhanger that would have made a great ending to one episode and made us hungry for the next, but instead we have to rush headlong into the next scene to get on with things. The increasing complications along the way make the ending only more abrupt, with too many things left unexplained. (For example, why would a certain character feel the need to pull what would have to be a 200-pound floating container out of the sea, how would they physically manage it, what would they do with the contents, and why would they be cleaning it outside in plain sight of everyone passing by?)
This is the sort of Modern Gothic undertaking that Ozark (2017), for example, does so well, but they, in contrast, take the time to tell a story in detail and let us settle into it. This film rushes through a similar saga in 90 minutes, when a better approach would to either seek out a longer format, or at least unpack some of the baggage before making the trip.