This was one of those films that I was so ready to like, but I just really didn't, and I felt kind of gaslit by all the glowing reviews.
It was gorgeously, wonderfully shot, and I did pick up on the intricacies of the romance and I did enjoy the poignance of the ending. My main problem was that everyone was just so unlikeable. I found it incredibly hard to relate to anyone, especially the two main characters. I never once picked up on anything that Antony did that made him worthwhile to be around; he was simply pompous and awful. Is that the point? Sure, maybe but even in those brief moments where he was 'ok' he was still so dreadful as a person that it couldn't possibly outshine anything so much as it weighed down his nauseating character even more.
Julie was one of my least favorite portrayals of 'the artist' in media recently. If this is the type of person who exemplifies the struggles of the artist, God help us as a species because there will be nothing produced worth remembering. I never got a sense of drive whatsoever, that she ever even wanted to be producing art - it all felt like another dollop of privilege on top of what she already had. Sure, the film pointed that out, but they didn't do anything about it. All of her classmates seemed more preoccupied with art than she did, and that made them more compelling in their brief turns on screen. In stories about artists there are layers - the way their real-world emotional and social lives and relationships inform and intertwine with the art they produce can make for engaging narratives, as revelations can come in many forms. But what are we to make of a character, then, who is an artist, but seems to not think about art at all? Are we supposed to align with and see suffering in the 'tortured artist' even when it seems she couldn't care less about art?
I couldn't help but feel like Julie's overwhelming disagreeability, lack of motivation, and her general petty issues were a massive miss for the concept of a female filmmaker on screen in the current day and age. Films about making films aren't always hits, but when they are, it's because they are coursing with passion, which I just did not feel here at all.
I'll be honest, I was a little shocked by how much I disliked this film. It's rare for me to have such a negative reaction, especially about something that on the surface seems so up my alley. Part of me wonders what I missed here, because obviously the rest of the educated film world loved it. But what is it? I was prepared to relate to the characters. I went to film school, know people like Antony and Julie. I know people who are addicts and swing back and forth between emotions that make them hard to predict and harder to live with. I know people who are stuck in relationships that seem so obvious when you're on the outside. All of these people are exciting, interesting, fun to be around, tragic and frightening in their own ways. They feel real,but no one in this film, to me, even barely approached feeling real, and the narrative crumbled as soon as I realized it.
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