Julie Delpy mashes family drama with sci-fi thriller in a film hamstrung by its earnest absurdity
However sincerely intended it is, there is something jarringly misjudged and misconceived (and not especially well acted) in this peculiar Europuddingy film from writer-director Julie Delpy. It starts out as a wrenchingly painful human drama. But having clumsily invoked the most intimate of family tragedies, it lurches into a preposterous melodrama from a Huxley-esque dystopia.
The setting is the present or near-future (some tech innovations tip you off) and Delpy plays Isabelle, a French scientist living in Berlin with her six-year-old daughter Zoe (Sophia Ally), whose custody arrangements she is negotiating with her angry British ex-husband James (Richard Armitage). He’s an abusive and controlling figure who never supported her career and accused her of neglecting their daughter.
However sincerely intended it is, there is something jarringly misjudged and misconceived (and not especially well acted) in this peculiar Europuddingy film from writer-director Julie Delpy. It starts out as a wrenchingly painful human drama. But having clumsily invoked the most intimate of family tragedies, it lurches into a preposterous melodrama from a Huxley-esque dystopia.
The setting is the present or near-future (some tech innovations tip you off) and Delpy plays Isabelle, a French scientist living in Berlin with her six-year-old daughter Zoe (Sophia Ally), whose custody arrangements she is negotiating with her angry British ex-husband James (Richard Armitage). He’s an abusive and controlling figure who never supported her career and accused her of neglecting their daughter.
- 10/1/2020
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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