Other reviewers have veered either for one star, or ten. I'm going down the middle; four.
It is dreamy, corny, beautifully set-staged, almost, but its subject matter isn't. It traipses along as if in a trance, we are either taken in by its beauty or it just passes by, languidly, slowly, and yes, boringly.
I can't remember if anyone swore. There was blood, otherwise what happened? People sang quite a lot, embarrassingly, at times, otherwise one contrived scene floated into the next. True, I've not read the book, so cannot compare.
I think it could work if perhaps if it was written by Harold Pinter and directed like a Dennis Potter - jet black, violent and maybe then, memorable.
As it is, it's soppy, attempting to be different, where being different is like being different in the school playground; it looks odd, that oddness showing up over any potential good and thus making the film simply not work.
It is dreamy, corny, beautifully set-staged, almost, but its subject matter isn't. It traipses along as if in a trance, we are either taken in by its beauty or it just passes by, languidly, slowly, and yes, boringly.
I can't remember if anyone swore. There was blood, otherwise what happened? People sang quite a lot, embarrassingly, at times, otherwise one contrived scene floated into the next. True, I've not read the book, so cannot compare.
I think it could work if perhaps if it was written by Harold Pinter and directed like a Dennis Potter - jet black, violent and maybe then, memorable.
As it is, it's soppy, attempting to be different, where being different is like being different in the school playground; it looks odd, that oddness showing up over any potential good and thus making the film simply not work.