I was really looking forward to this film. The trailer was great, and I love these actors, but Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Thandie Newton, Jacob Trembley, Kathy Bates, and Michael Gambon...yes, even he made a cameo, were WASTED. The rhetoric of this film-the messages it wanted to convey-were also lost. I could tell immediately upon hearing "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele, about 5 min in, that this was going to be screwed up. The director, who wrote and produced this, has apparently never heard a real conversation. The dialogue was forced and unnatural. The story was told through skimming the surface of concepts and unnecessary 5 min bouts of music without character dialogue or development. The characters are almost an afterthought, and clearly directed in an off/unnatural way.
Most of the film seemed a group of scenes from different films-the style was inconsistent. The score was awful. The music didn't fit. There were WAY too many things being tackled, leaving no time to develop any of them. And the editing was terrible. No fluidity or logical order of interweaving the interview and the events.
The film made me cry, and I appreciated the purpose of it. But I'm afraid such an important message was washed away by the writing and directing. I found out after I watched it that Jessica Chastain was cast, filmed as a main character, and then cut completely. Maybe cutting an entire main character and the impact she had on the story leant to the mess, but it also seems like a rookie/film school mistake to make, in the first place. And this director is not new.
I'm really disappointed and annoyed.
Most of the film seemed a group of scenes from different films-the style was inconsistent. The score was awful. The music didn't fit. There were WAY too many things being tackled, leaving no time to develop any of them. And the editing was terrible. No fluidity or logical order of interweaving the interview and the events.
The film made me cry, and I appreciated the purpose of it. But I'm afraid such an important message was washed away by the writing and directing. I found out after I watched it that Jessica Chastain was cast, filmed as a main character, and then cut completely. Maybe cutting an entire main character and the impact she had on the story leant to the mess, but it also seems like a rookie/film school mistake to make, in the first place. And this director is not new.
I'm really disappointed and annoyed.