Review of Desire Me

Its structure is intense. The way it's edited kept me always on the tip of my toes. I was biting my nails through half of it, and feeling a nervous guilt in the pit of my stomach through the other half. This movie has it all, from one of the best escape scenes ever, to a whole spectrum of emotional truths. I found myself switching my opinions many times about the characters and what actions they should take. All the way through the ending, I was proud for the people who lent their efforts to make this movie. The acting and cinematography are unbeatable. I repeat, unbeatable! It might not be air-tight in plot details, but it gets a certain sense of cinematic perfection across that can also be found in other 1947 movies like "Out of the Past" and "Black Narcissus". I love those movies just as much as this one, if not more, so it's a little baffling how hard people are ragging on it.

It seems like the making of the movie was beset by hardship, and left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of the cast and crew, but I see no reason that it should leave a bad taste in our mouths. It's just too gorgeous a movie to forget about. And any hardship and injury that came of it only makes the cinematic achievement that much more astounding. But ultimately, this movie's greatest achievement is that it surprisingly exudes a maturity that is more common in movies made closer to the present, for example, Mike Leigh's morality-play movies "Vera Drake" (2004) and "Another Year" (2010). It's time "Desire Me" had a re-evaluation, if you ask me.