There really are two parts to any movie. First, the obvious (plot, character development, setting, etc.) and second, that which is subtle... underlying. This film is filled with the latter. In fact, it would be a great disservice to the film to focus on just the plot without describing the feeling Winterbottom relays. On the surface, it's a film about three sisters and the very different choices they've made in their lives. The first, a single mom who pawns her son off to her anything-but-worthy ex-husband so she can go out and party. The second, a pregnant woman who's husband seems to be getting more and more spooked as the idea of a child coming into their home becomes closer to a reality. And finally, the youngest, a woman who simply longs to have someone -- anyone in her life. She takes to the personal ads and sleeping with men that will obviously not give her the emotional support she so desperately seeks.
Obviously, these women have all taken different paths in their lives. But it's not their paths that make the movie so interesting, it's their motivation. We need only look at the loveless marriage of the parents that begot these women to understand why they've all come to love and/or long for emotionally inaccessible men.
Winterbottom does a superb job of making us feel the grimy desperation in each of these women's lives. Cramped apartments give a sense of claustrophobia. The incessant barking of dogs begin to grate on not only the nerves of the characters, but on those of the audience as well. And throughout the movie, natural lighting is used giving us a sense that not all is polished and produced in the lives of the characters. All of these factors that have left the characters in the story with a quiet desperation, also pull the audience into a world of imbalance.
The score was absolutely brilliant -- one of the best matched soundtracks to a movie I've yet come across. Sublime at some points, triumphant at others, it was the final piece that made this film a joy to watch. Not because it makes you feel good... but simply because it makes you feel. Something. Real.
Obviously, these women have all taken different paths in their lives. But it's not their paths that make the movie so interesting, it's their motivation. We need only look at the loveless marriage of the parents that begot these women to understand why they've all come to love and/or long for emotionally inaccessible men.
Winterbottom does a superb job of making us feel the grimy desperation in each of these women's lives. Cramped apartments give a sense of claustrophobia. The incessant barking of dogs begin to grate on not only the nerves of the characters, but on those of the audience as well. And throughout the movie, natural lighting is used giving us a sense that not all is polished and produced in the lives of the characters. All of these factors that have left the characters in the story with a quiet desperation, also pull the audience into a world of imbalance.
The score was absolutely brilliant -- one of the best matched soundtracks to a movie I've yet come across. Sublime at some points, triumphant at others, it was the final piece that made this film a joy to watch. Not because it makes you feel good... but simply because it makes you feel. Something. Real.