This movie contains excellent acting, a surfeit of creativity, lovely costumes and visuals, and is, without question, the single most depressing movie I have ever seen. One should be wary of expectations when viewing a movie, but the title, the casting, and the advertisements gave the impression the viewer was going to see a lighthearted English period piece.
Instead it gives a relentlessly bleak view of humanity, then blind sides the viewer with a plot development that is so horrifying as to defy description. When I read other reviews talk about the different aspects of the movie I wanted to scream "So what?!". One plot development overpowers the rest of the movie like a gunshot to the gut cancels perception of a hangnail, making the rest of the movie irrelevant. The only work of literature I can compare it too is Kafka's "The Metamorphosis".
It escapes me how dozens of people can devote months of their lives and millions of dollars to create something so willfully downbeat and depressing, all to no real end. Pathology and despair and heartache can be handled effectively in cinema, "Apocalypse Now" comes to mind. But this movie just makes you want to take a Valium and watch an Ace Ventura movie.
I repeat. This is the single most depressing movie I have ever seen. If that sound appealing to you, seek it out and prepare yourself for the "Citizen Kane" of heartbreak and anguish.
Instead it gives a relentlessly bleak view of humanity, then blind sides the viewer with a plot development that is so horrifying as to defy description. When I read other reviews talk about the different aspects of the movie I wanted to scream "So what?!". One plot development overpowers the rest of the movie like a gunshot to the gut cancels perception of a hangnail, making the rest of the movie irrelevant. The only work of literature I can compare it too is Kafka's "The Metamorphosis".
It escapes me how dozens of people can devote months of their lives and millions of dollars to create something so willfully downbeat and depressing, all to no real end. Pathology and despair and heartache can be handled effectively in cinema, "Apocalypse Now" comes to mind. But this movie just makes you want to take a Valium and watch an Ace Ventura movie.
I repeat. This is the single most depressing movie I have ever seen. If that sound appealing to you, seek it out and prepare yourself for the "Citizen Kane" of heartbreak and anguish.