Personally, I liked this movie. It has a simple, raw sort of charm in a time when so many movies are being made with complex, twisting plots just for the sake of seeming "complex" and "deep", but closer inspection reveals that half the plot points don't make sense, don't tie together, seem completely extraneous or even outright contradict each other. This movie avoids those pitfalls by stripping the narrative development down to the bare bones of what's necessary to tell the story. I can understand why this would be somewhat jarring for modern viewers, given what I've previously said, but personally I found it a bit refreshing.
One of my few complaints is that the dialogue does seem a little too sparse to the point of seeming unnatural at times, even for the creative direction the movie was taken in, but it makes up for it with an intensity I can't quite fully describe in many of its scenes. For example, in one scene Marie is spoon feeding her mother and misses her mouth, getting food on her face. At first it seems like it was because she's distracted by the TV and/or her own thoughts, but then she turns to her mother and starts intentionally smearing the food over her face until her father notices. He becomes irate, asking Marie what she's doing at which point Marie storms out of the room after angrily demanding to know what, exactly, is even wrong with her. This scene only has two lines of dialogue, but it perfectly captures Marie's frustration over being so in the dark regarding her family's situation and the fact that it seems like she may be starting to suffer from the same condition as her mother has been all these years, whatever that may be.
That pretty much sums up the movie, actually... an intense but minimalist experience that substitutes raw energy for anything beyond the most basic exposition. Well, verbal exposition, anyway. There's plenty of non-verbal cues to tell you what's going on, but I guess that's what I would describe as the "energy" of it... looks exchanged between two characters, facial expressions, the pace of their stride. Things like that are put to extremely effective use to tell this tale as well as the movie manages to do so. Once again, it's probably not for everyone, especially viewers used to modern Hollywood flicks, but it's very well done (IMHO) and a refreshing movie experience.
One of my few complaints is that the dialogue does seem a little too sparse to the point of seeming unnatural at times, even for the creative direction the movie was taken in, but it makes up for it with an intensity I can't quite fully describe in many of its scenes. For example, in one scene Marie is spoon feeding her mother and misses her mouth, getting food on her face. At first it seems like it was because she's distracted by the TV and/or her own thoughts, but then she turns to her mother and starts intentionally smearing the food over her face until her father notices. He becomes irate, asking Marie what she's doing at which point Marie storms out of the room after angrily demanding to know what, exactly, is even wrong with her. This scene only has two lines of dialogue, but it perfectly captures Marie's frustration over being so in the dark regarding her family's situation and the fact that it seems like she may be starting to suffer from the same condition as her mother has been all these years, whatever that may be.
That pretty much sums up the movie, actually... an intense but minimalist experience that substitutes raw energy for anything beyond the most basic exposition. Well, verbal exposition, anyway. There's plenty of non-verbal cues to tell you what's going on, but I guess that's what I would describe as the "energy" of it... looks exchanged between two characters, facial expressions, the pace of their stride. Things like that are put to extremely effective use to tell this tale as well as the movie manages to do so. Once again, it's probably not for everyone, especially viewers used to modern Hollywood flicks, but it's very well done (IMHO) and a refreshing movie experience.