SPOILERS:
This soft spoken, slow moving, almost arty tale of two families, set in the fifties, is an unusual and very engrossing movie. When I saw this, I started off rather impatient for it to speed up and get where it was going at a brisker pace. While the pace never really takes off as much as I would have liked, the story does gain momentum and the characters become more fully realized as you watch. It just takes some time.
In terms of my thoughts on this film I will say I didn't love it nor did I dislike it. I was a little let down after as I thought I would have liked a bit more then I did. But it really is the epitome of a movie that grows on you and I will say I was very touched by the end of the film. It's a tough movie to give a rating to because I kind of get the feeling I might like it more if I see it a second time. But I will say what my primary likes and dislikes were.
First the dislikes. There was so much that was abstract and so many things that were never explained fully or at all. I had a lot of questions at the end. So did the group of people I saw this with. I wont get into the list of those things as there are a lot and this review would be way to long but suffice to say it was probably more then half a dozen things and these were major plot points. There's a difference between ambiguity and complete vagueness over key plot elements and I felt this movie had more of the latter.
Another oddity that I didn't care for was the Strong resemblance between Doug and Jc. Now Crudup and Phoenix do not look much alike in real life but in this movie it seems nearly impossible to tell them apart. Therefore in the beginning when everything was unfolding I could not tell at times which brother was on screen at any given moment. And my friends felt that too. The resemblance between them was to much.
Also the narration added to the movie's element of confusion.Key characters didn't get enough screen time. One of my friends had already seen this and shocked me by accidentally revealing in the movie that Jennifer Connoly's character was all but gone after her dad ships her out of town. I had assumed she would be back as a key character. I was very disappointed when this was not the case.
Alice gets little to no screen time. Who is she as a person? We are really never told. Pam played by Liv Tyler was supposed to be a sympathetic character but she wound up really annoying me as well as some of my friends. There was so much game playing with her and Joaquin Phoenix the whole movie started to be about them. They sure did have chemistry but that took away from other characters' screen time. And the mother's story was fascinating, she was fascinating and Kathy Baker is my pic for most Oscar caliber performance. We should have seen more of her and her story as well.
And there was no confrontation between JC and ....well....anyone. I thought the movie was building toward that but other then the whole Pam drama we really never see much of that on screen. I thought there would be a confrontation between him and the mother. Also I really REALLY wanted a confrontation between the mother and Mr. Abbott as well as someone to tell off Joan, without a doubt one of the most dislike able characters I've seen in awhile. But there isn't anything like that and maybe that's to be expected because the movie is kind of..for lack of a better word..soft spoken.
Then there is the predictable element. As soon as Kathy Baker's character had that cough I knew something was gonna happen to her and that scene at the end(writing "I love you" on the glass) as sweet and poignant as it was, was so sugar sweet and predictable and didn't really go with the movie. And the movie ends kind of abruptly as well.
Now for the likes...great acting. In fact the acting was just superb...by everyone. Strong on mood and atmosphere. Good running time(long enough but not to long.) Poignant storyline. Poignant(that word again!), believable characters and a certain bittersweet element that made it very believable as well as tremendous chemistry between Liv and Joaqueen, and in spite of the negatives a really interesting storyline.It is the story that hooks one in and despite all I did not like about it, I still became really engrossed as the movie went on.
I think this movie's above average and the cast worked very well together. Everyone was believable in their respective roles. It will never be one of my favorites but it definitely is not your typical movie. 7 of 10.
This soft spoken, slow moving, almost arty tale of two families, set in the fifties, is an unusual and very engrossing movie. When I saw this, I started off rather impatient for it to speed up and get where it was going at a brisker pace. While the pace never really takes off as much as I would have liked, the story does gain momentum and the characters become more fully realized as you watch. It just takes some time.
In terms of my thoughts on this film I will say I didn't love it nor did I dislike it. I was a little let down after as I thought I would have liked a bit more then I did. But it really is the epitome of a movie that grows on you and I will say I was very touched by the end of the film. It's a tough movie to give a rating to because I kind of get the feeling I might like it more if I see it a second time. But I will say what my primary likes and dislikes were.
First the dislikes. There was so much that was abstract and so many things that were never explained fully or at all. I had a lot of questions at the end. So did the group of people I saw this with. I wont get into the list of those things as there are a lot and this review would be way to long but suffice to say it was probably more then half a dozen things and these were major plot points. There's a difference between ambiguity and complete vagueness over key plot elements and I felt this movie had more of the latter.
Another oddity that I didn't care for was the Strong resemblance between Doug and Jc. Now Crudup and Phoenix do not look much alike in real life but in this movie it seems nearly impossible to tell them apart. Therefore in the beginning when everything was unfolding I could not tell at times which brother was on screen at any given moment. And my friends felt that too. The resemblance between them was to much.
Also the narration added to the movie's element of confusion.Key characters didn't get enough screen time. One of my friends had already seen this and shocked me by accidentally revealing in the movie that Jennifer Connoly's character was all but gone after her dad ships her out of town. I had assumed she would be back as a key character. I was very disappointed when this was not the case.
Alice gets little to no screen time. Who is she as a person? We are really never told. Pam played by Liv Tyler was supposed to be a sympathetic character but she wound up really annoying me as well as some of my friends. There was so much game playing with her and Joaquin Phoenix the whole movie started to be about them. They sure did have chemistry but that took away from other characters' screen time. And the mother's story was fascinating, she was fascinating and Kathy Baker is my pic for most Oscar caliber performance. We should have seen more of her and her story as well.
And there was no confrontation between JC and ....well....anyone. I thought the movie was building toward that but other then the whole Pam drama we really never see much of that on screen. I thought there would be a confrontation between him and the mother. Also I really REALLY wanted a confrontation between the mother and Mr. Abbott as well as someone to tell off Joan, without a doubt one of the most dislike able characters I've seen in awhile. But there isn't anything like that and maybe that's to be expected because the movie is kind of..for lack of a better word..soft spoken.
Then there is the predictable element. As soon as Kathy Baker's character had that cough I knew something was gonna happen to her and that scene at the end(writing "I love you" on the glass) as sweet and poignant as it was, was so sugar sweet and predictable and didn't really go with the movie. And the movie ends kind of abruptly as well.
Now for the likes...great acting. In fact the acting was just superb...by everyone. Strong on mood and atmosphere. Good running time(long enough but not to long.) Poignant storyline. Poignant(that word again!), believable characters and a certain bittersweet element that made it very believable as well as tremendous chemistry between Liv and Joaqueen, and in spite of the negatives a really interesting storyline.It is the story that hooks one in and despite all I did not like about it, I still became really engrossed as the movie went on.
I think this movie's above average and the cast worked very well together. Everyone was believable in their respective roles. It will never be one of my favorites but it definitely is not your typical movie. 7 of 10.