Tonight's film review
Little Children.
I really wanted to like this. It had scenes that were really affecting and powerful (mostly those with Jackie Earle Haley, who portrayed both the human and rather inhuman sides of a child molester, a performance and depiction that would likely sicken most decent folks who like their evil charachters pure evil and not symapthetic and fleshed out.)
But the cliches and cheesiness just took me out of it every 10 minutes or so. The voice-over narration (as the screenwriting workshop dude in Adaptation said, voiceover is a terrible, lazy narrative device and violates one of the main tenets of narrative literature and, in my opinion, is much more true for film: show, don't tell.)
The dialogue is generally cliched and uninspired. The character that Haley goes on the date with is played by the actress who played "Joy" the single sister from Solondz' "Happiness" and essentially plays the exact same charachter in both type as well as situationally (I won't give away more.) Her scene with Haley both on and at the end of their date is by far the most powerful and well executed of the film and keeps me from calling this film a failure.
I'd say that this is "American Beauty" for the mid aughts and will impress the same viewers who were impressed by that good but flawed and very Hollywood film tackling themes that always work better in independent cinema. I liked American Beauty a lot when I was a teenager and had less exposure to quality cinema and I'm sure people who are not familiar with the breadth of film that deals with disfunctional suburbanites and pedophilia will be impressed by this.
But me, I ask for more. But again, Haley is really really impressive. He puts in such heart and sympathy into a charachter that is by turns pathetic, loveable and monstrous - one of the best acting performances in any film from last year.
The football game scene that plays like a classic NFL films feature is a clever and hillarious aside, however, but it doesn't really follow with the theme of the film at all.
I'm not sure why Kate Winslet got an Oscar nomiation either.
The child acting in this was very good as well. I have no idea how you direct 4 year olds successfully. It's amazing.
Anybody else have thoughts about this?
I really wanted to like this. It had scenes that were really affecting and powerful (mostly those with Jackie Earle Haley, who portrayed both the human and rather inhuman sides of a child molester, a performance and depiction that would likely sicken most decent folks who like their evil charachters pure evil and not symapthetic and fleshed out.)
But the cliches and cheesiness just took me out of it every 10 minutes or so. The voice-over narration (as the screenwriting workshop dude in Adaptation said, voiceover is a terrible, lazy narrative device and violates one of the main tenets of narrative literature and, in my opinion, is much more true for film: show, don't tell.)
The dialogue is generally cliched and uninspired. The character that Haley goes on the date with is played by the actress who played "Joy" the single sister from Solondz' "Happiness" and essentially plays the exact same charachter in both type as well as situationally (I won't give away more.) Her scene with Haley both on and at the end of their date is by far the most powerful and well executed of the film and keeps me from calling this film a failure.
I'd say that this is "American Beauty" for the mid aughts and will impress the same viewers who were impressed by that good but flawed and very Hollywood film tackling themes that always work better in independent cinema. I liked American Beauty a lot when I was a teenager and had less exposure to quality cinema and I'm sure people who are not familiar with the breadth of film that deals with disfunctional suburbanites and pedophilia will be impressed by this.
But me, I ask for more. But again, Haley is really really impressive. He puts in such heart and sympathy into a charachter that is by turns pathetic, loveable and monstrous - one of the best acting performances in any film from last year.
The football game scene that plays like a classic NFL films feature is a clever and hillarious aside, however, but it doesn't really follow with the theme of the film at all.
I'm not sure why Kate Winslet got an Oscar nomiation either.
The child acting in this was very good as well. I have no idea how you direct 4 year olds successfully. It's amazing.
Anybody else have thoughts about this?