Por Trás dos Seus Olhos

I only came to the knowledge of this film's existence by browsing through Blake Lively's IMDB page, and was frankly shocked to see the unbelievably low number of votes (in the 600s at this time). Even more so, I was flabbergasted when I saw that this film carries a production budget of $30M and only managed less than $1M in its limited theatrical run. Usually these numbers indicate a huge bomb caused by universal dislike from the critics and the general audience, but judging by the ridiculously small amount of votes here, the complete lack of exposure of any kind it indicates, and the mediocre scores, this is also not the case. Curious, I watched this film, and now I think I can see why.

All I See Is You is an underwhelming film with a weak story and is also a creative misfire, in the sense that it does not present itself in any way as a coherent package with a clearly defined target audience. As a drama film, the film's mainstream appeal is clearly far from wide, and it isn't anywhere close to being experimental or avant-garde (not to mention no sane producer/investor would greenlight a arthouse production at even 1/10 of the budget of this one).

Narratively the story is loosely written with a slow pace (especially in the beginning) that doesn't allow the film to gather much momentum. When the screen isn't showing you a scene that's clearly a part of the main storyline, I couldn't even ascertain if what I was watching was going to be developed into a subplot, or if it's just a random scene depicting a random minutiae that fills the screen time. I did not watch this movie expecting that I'd be hugely entertained, but it should have been obvious to the filmmakers that intercutting narratively unimportant scenes with random flashbacks is clearly insufficient to keep the audience interested, when the main storyline is so thin. When moments of drama finally arrive, they lack the originality, or the creative punch that comes with a well thought-out, well executed plot point, to really surprise and satisfy viewers. There's hardly any momentum building as the story progresses, which explains the lack of tension I felt when the film reached its supposed climax.

Visually, this film simply contains too many shots where the cinematographer seems to be trying very hard to bring to the screen the blind girl's view of the world, all in a very impressionist and therefore distracting manner. In my opinion this was overkill, and it ended up creating an overall look that's more gimmicky than beautiful.

It also conveyed a sense of alienation to me, as it made me want to talk to the screen, 'hey, I'm not blind, that's why I'm watching this, so could you please stop showing me what the world may seem from the blind girl's perspective (not to mention that that perspective should be pitch blackness if she was really blind) show me something that's actually interesting, like the actual story.'

Instead, one can edit out all the shots of this type in this film, put them together, and you'd get a fine contender for "32 potentially interesting short clips for my Windows OS screensaver" or "video to play on the big screen at a Blur concert". It wears off rather quickly and becomes tedious after the initial novelty. I also find that parts of the soundtrack to be at odds to what the scenes were trying to portray.

With a medium sized budget for a drama film at $30M (which means the producers were obviously expecting a wide theatrical release and for the film to not be a flop for that kind of release, in order to stand a chance at turning a profit), some of these creative decisions are simply baffling.

In fact, you can go check the production budget for most of 2017's Oscar bait films, like 3 Billboards, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water etc, and these films all have roughly the same level of production budget as All I See Is You. It really is mind-boggling. I'm not saying the end product is too generic. In fact, I do suspect that, had the film been made in a more by-the-book standard Hollywood fashion, it likely would have gotten a better result.

Well, it can hardly get worse than the current situation, where the box office is practically negligible against the costs. I still find it really hard to believe the number of votes here, which suggests that practically nobody except those who literally came across it/stumbled upon it have seen this, which is quite ridiculous, and as a Blake Lively fan, I don't even know how she would feel about accepting this role as the follow up to 2016's surprise hit The Shallows.

I get it that the very idea of 'what if a blind girl recovers her sight somehow, and discovers that the world isn't quite as she thought it was' is a novel one and has potential, but that idea ALONE can only support a short film, granted it can be a very interesting 15 minute vignette if done well. The filmmakers simply failed to expand on the central premise here, and what we get is a feature length film that is a bore to sit through.

Producer, director, writer Marc Forster is best known for directing the films Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner, Quantum of Solace and World War Z wrote this screenplay with Sean Conway (TV series Ray Donavan and Shameless). ALL I SEE IS YOU is a theme with challenge to any writer: these tow men almost meet that challenge but seem to get lost in the process. The result is a very long, tedious, cinematographer's holiday (Matthias Koenigswieser) about the world we see and the world we don't see. Despite the presence of some fine actors the film is tedious and loses the audience after about thirty minutes of blurry (but colorful!) versions of the world passing by the eyes of a blind girl.

Apparently blinded since childhood when a hideous car-crash cost her her parents and her eyesight (a fact that is never explained - we must guess that is the case), beautiful Gina (Blake Lively) scarcely leaves their home in Bangkok, Thailand and is dependent on her attentive and doting husband, James (Jason Clark), who is her everything: her protector, her guide, and the sole intermediary with the outside world and who has never known the sighted Gina, and wants to make a baby. Medicine intervenes, a cutting-edge but highly experimental cornea transplant By one Dr. Hughes (Danny Huston) promises to restore Gina's vision, at least to her right eye--and when the bandages come off all of a sudden unexplored colors and senses begin to appear to her. But she is dependent on steroid drops in her eyes to assure the transplant takes. As a result, Gina will see her husband and her unknown reflection in the mirror for the first time, she befriends an unwanted dog, makes friends with dog walker cum sensual interest (Wes Chatham), and with time and some distance from James and an odd visit to her Barcelona sister Carla (Ahna O'Reilly) and her artsy husband Ramon (Miquel Fernández) Gina becomes pregnant (though James has discovered he is sterile!), and her vision is altered again - the reason is only suggested. And then the film ends.

Chunks of the story are missing (?intentionally?) and the constant cinematic version of the world through near blind eyes becomes as tiring to the audience as it must to the patient with altered eyesight. There are some odd sidebars of Gina playing the guitar with a young girl, surreal shots of Bangkok, strange S&M scenes unexplained that keep our attention at times. The concept regarding blindness and how it affects the victim are sound. It is the delivery of the 'story' that begs editing.

"All I See Is You" is a film that left me a tad disappointed. The idea for the story was very good but at times the execution seemed a bit flat....and the cinematographic trick seemed overused.

The story is oddly set in Thailand...and I really was never sure why a blind American woman would live in such a world. I have nothing against Thailand or any other country....but it did seem odd she would live in such a difficult place in which she could become acclimated due to the language and culture. It would be difficult enough to live her life in a more familiar setting. Regardless, she lives with her husband and her life seems good. But after she receives eye surgery and her vision is restored, the marriage begins to show a lot of problems....and how the husband responds to it is quite strange....but interesting.

The film wasn't bad at all and the notion of eye surgery actually resulting in a marital breakdown is fascinating. The Iranian director, Majid Majidi did a brilliant film about this ("The Willow Tree"). But here it seemed as if the film had two problems. First, to simulate the woman's vision, we often saw distorted views of the world...and this seemed overused and gimmicky. Second, some of the film seemed unnecessarily crude and rather gross. A but more subtlety would have made for a better story. Still, it is interesting and you won't hate it....but it so easily could have been a bit better.

There's a broken and dirty voyeuristic atmosphere in this film that I do not enjoy.

Time to tell you how bad this film is. I didn't know much about it but I really like Blake Lively. Ever since the Gossip Girl days I've been interested in seeing more of her. The Shallows might be ridiculous at times but she's good in it and does show effort to her role. The same can be said for her commitment to this film, however its a shame everything else about this film lets her down. Its definitely a "what the hell did I just watch" film.

The film is about a woman who is blind and has surgery to repair her vision. Once this happens her husband starts realizing that she knows about how attractive and appealing she is and becomes concerned with their marriage falling apart and her being pulled out towards other relationships. That's really whats going on. Along the way she starts losing her sight again along with her relationship. And then there's a what the heck moment with an incredibly stupid ending.

The film does a good job of portraying eye popping visuals for what Lively's character sees when she is blind. The foggy, ever changing, and almost psychedelic visuals of her vision are quite nice to look at. As mentioned earlier Lively is good in this, but everyone in this film is unlikable. Lively's character isn't worth redeeming, Jason Clarke' s character is mysterious, like was he even good or bad? There's a lot of weird awkward moments dialogues about dicks and a very weirdly creepy brother in law. Yikes.

I want to say there was potential here but about twenty minutes in you realize that its just wasted time. I want to see Lively in something better with a good filmmaker to bat. This is just a frustratingly bad experience because we have a frustrating director at the helm. Its quite stupid at times, you may want to check it out to see if you can form a different more positive opinion about it. Honestly though, its better to not "see" this one.

5/10