With all its portentous winks and nods to popular older films and flashy, gimmick-infused directing, as another wry reviewer mentioned, this is a film totally for and from a young film student. Surprisingly, director Matthew Parkhill was a British history and English schoolteacher before he made this thing. If it's any consolation, the futures of English lads are probably a little more secure now that Parkhill is out of the classroom.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, he's now behind a camera making bad movies. Heavy spoiler alert warning: Parkhill's insistence on camera motifs and crosscutting techniques might seem fitting regarding the great "twist" in the movie, but once you take away these cinematic red-herrings, you realize this twist is TOTALLY unrealistic and not set up in any other way than flimsy jump-cuts. I won't be completely rigid here; the twist is mildly surprising, but these last few minutes do not make up for what is otherwise a disaster in film-making. In fact, in this 90-minute film, the first 75 are completely irredeemable. The dialogue, for supposed improvisation, has been harvested from the cliché-fields. Lines like, "Were you the one following me?" or "This is what happens when you fall in love!" sound like they are straight from some bad faux-noir. And then there are the actors. I'll try to keep this brief: Natalia Verbeke, again for the supposed "real person," is the most unnatural in the entire film. She does little else here but look hot in a bra. Admittedly, she is truly truly hot. I don't know why the fairly talented Gael Garcia Bernal attached his name to this film, though he might know there is a rabid English-shrieking female audience just craving his hunky Latin looks, and an English-speaking role can tap him into that niche market governed by the Dicaprios and Kutchers of the Western world. Other than that, his forced accent (is it Spanish or English?) sounds like Keanu Reeves's unintentionally comical Don Juan. All the while, we get the abysmal staples of postmodern, MTV film-making: headache-inducing jittery camera, fragmented narratives, jarring elliptical edits, with some dreadful British pop rock bands and three-note ambiance chords strumming noisily and constantly in the background. By the end, it is truly impossible to believe this garbage would win any recognition at the film's Sundance mock "Indie-fest," though the sad reality is that this film indeed garnered licensing rights from some savvy business exec at Sundance intent on marketing the bejeezus out of this thing.
In other words, this film does everything wrong for nearly the entire movie and then expects you to forgive it for wasting your time by injecting some kooky literary plot twist in the final frames. I could go on, but I don't have the strength or energy for it. For those who watch this film despite the warning listed here, don't fail to succumb to your initial impulse of walking out within the first twenty minutes, as you'll save yourself the instant migraine. Good god this thing is bad.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, he's now behind a camera making bad movies. Heavy spoiler alert warning: Parkhill's insistence on camera motifs and crosscutting techniques might seem fitting regarding the great "twist" in the movie, but once you take away these cinematic red-herrings, you realize this twist is TOTALLY unrealistic and not set up in any other way than flimsy jump-cuts. I won't be completely rigid here; the twist is mildly surprising, but these last few minutes do not make up for what is otherwise a disaster in film-making. In fact, in this 90-minute film, the first 75 are completely irredeemable. The dialogue, for supposed improvisation, has been harvested from the cliché-fields. Lines like, "Were you the one following me?" or "This is what happens when you fall in love!" sound like they are straight from some bad faux-noir. And then there are the actors. I'll try to keep this brief: Natalia Verbeke, again for the supposed "real person," is the most unnatural in the entire film. She does little else here but look hot in a bra. Admittedly, she is truly truly hot. I don't know why the fairly talented Gael Garcia Bernal attached his name to this film, though he might know there is a rabid English-shrieking female audience just craving his hunky Latin looks, and an English-speaking role can tap him into that niche market governed by the Dicaprios and Kutchers of the Western world. Other than that, his forced accent (is it Spanish or English?) sounds like Keanu Reeves's unintentionally comical Don Juan. All the while, we get the abysmal staples of postmodern, MTV film-making: headache-inducing jittery camera, fragmented narratives, jarring elliptical edits, with some dreadful British pop rock bands and three-note ambiance chords strumming noisily and constantly in the background. By the end, it is truly impossible to believe this garbage would win any recognition at the film's Sundance mock "Indie-fest," though the sad reality is that this film indeed garnered licensing rights from some savvy business exec at Sundance intent on marketing the bejeezus out of this thing.
In other words, this film does everything wrong for nearly the entire movie and then expects you to forgive it for wasting your time by injecting some kooky literary plot twist in the final frames. I could go on, but I don't have the strength or energy for it. For those who watch this film despite the warning listed here, don't fail to succumb to your initial impulse of walking out within the first twenty minutes, as you'll save yourself the instant migraine. Good god this thing is bad.