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I still cant make up my mind over this one. I thought I would be able to by now but I still cant.
This was such a mix bag of a film for me. For ever 5 scenes that I really loved, there were 5 scenes that made me cringe.
Where to begin? The lead characters lack much depth and the few hints of depth that they have are cliched to the point where they just seem like any other character from any other film that deals with *DUN DUN DUN* the horrors lying underneath suburbia (!!). That's not to say that I wasn't invested with the characters. Wilson and Winslet do a great job with the material that they have and if it wasn't for their acting I don't think that I would have even cared for the characters or the film itself. The way their story is handled can be seen from a mile away and the "twists" that occur during their storyline are anything but twists. The conclusion/climax of the film where we finally get to the end of the film and their story is just ridiculous. To anyone who has seen the film - you know what I'm talking about.
That whole storyline didn't bother me too much. The acting really saved it along with some sparks of greatness. The part that really bothered me with the film is the pedophile subplot aka "The B story" because thats all it really turns out to be, a B story.
By this I mean that the pedophile storyline really doesn't even affect the main storyline about the relationship between Winslet and Wilson. Maybe it serves to point out the main theme of the film some more, but although its nice to say that a storyline furthers a film theme, its another thing for the storyline to have no purpose to the main plot. The way this whole story concludes is just "......." You are just left thinking why the film was 30 minutes longer if it was only going to end this storyline the way it does.
If you didn't already get it from the previous paragraphs - the conclusion to both storylines are lame. Very lame.
The other thing that I want to write about is the main thing that seems to divide people it seems, and that's the voice over narration. Sometimes I loved it, other times I didn't like it because it was just telling me everything that I was already seeing through the actors actions, and other times it was just so forced that it made me cringe. The perfect example of this being the football game sequence.
This whole write up may seem like I really disliked the film, but I really did not. I never thought it was slow and I don't think its a bad film at all. I just think that its not as great as it thinks it is and doesn't deliver any emotions to its audience to the point where the audience actually cares about whats happening. Instead, the film just leaves you feeling cold, distant, unattached, and mixed about your emotions.
I still don't know what I exactly thought of the film but for now it gets a B from me until I can maybe think about it some more or watch it again.
- B
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