5/10
Sean Durkin both wrote and directed this movie, his debut feature. It's a superb showcase for his directorial skills - not only is the film photographed beautifully (in the kind of hazy, muted style that recalls old Polaroids), Durkin evinces a tremendous performance out of newcomer Elizabeth Olsen and juggles the main storyline and the flashback sequences quite well. It's his skills as a writer that do his film irreparable harm. None of what I mentioned just before can disguise the fact that this is an incredibly vacuous story, littered with clichés from the rapist cult leader to the rote, success-obsessed family Olsen has to fall back on and down to the woman insane herself. There's nary a sympathetic character in sight, and I'm still not quite sure why or if we're even supposed to feel anything for Olsen's character at all. All the beautiful shots and nifty tricks come across as window-dressing for a clearly subpar story. Hopefully on Durkin's next project he either comes up with something more interesting to say, or hires someone who can, because he clearly has talent as director.
No comments:
Post a Comment