This film drags interminably and meanders away from what little story there is. What are the stakes? The boy in jail seems happy, there and he's going to ask if he can do woodworking while he's there. No stakes. The lawyer asks permission and is granted it to do the case but just as a side deal while she still focuses on her financial cases. No stakes.
Scripts and films need to always be moving, like a shark. You can't have downtime or you lose the audience, and this film has downtime every five or 10 minutes. What's the story about? If it's about the kid, why do we go away from him for 20 minutes to see the cop and lawyer, almost having sex in the car twice? How does that relate to the story at all? Who are all these peripheral characters that don't seem to have anything to do with a story, the mom, the sister, friends? Find a story and stay focused on it.
And the shot choices became frustrating. Three people in a tense standoff in an interrogation room, and all we do is bounce between the same monotonous, undramatic singles for each? How about a wider shot, a three shot, or at least a couple two shots?
And where are the twists? There are none, it just meanders forward with everyone (still living) fine. No stakes=boring. You could cut thirty minutes from this cut and not lose the story (whatever it is, I honestly couldn't find it. Where are the character conflicts, the characters' desires and the barriers to getting them and how the characters react to those ?). Felt like a modest student film.
Scripts and films need to always be moving, like a shark. You can't have downtime or you lose the audience, and this film has downtime every five or 10 minutes. What's the story about? If it's about the kid, why do we go away from him for 20 minutes to see the cop and lawyer, almost having sex in the car twice? How does that relate to the story at all? Who are all these peripheral characters that don't seem to have anything to do with a story, the mom, the sister, friends? Find a story and stay focused on it.
And the shot choices became frustrating. Three people in a tense standoff in an interrogation room, and all we do is bounce between the same monotonous, undramatic singles for each? How about a wider shot, a three shot, or at least a couple two shots?
And where are the twists? There are none, it just meanders forward with everyone (still living) fine. No stakes=boring. You could cut thirty minutes from this cut and not lose the story (whatever it is, I honestly couldn't find it. Where are the character conflicts, the characters' desires and the barriers to getting them and how the characters react to those ?). Felt like a modest student film.
