I was excited about a bit of a glossy film with a dark, slightly complicated plot that might include a twist (that's how the trailer seemed to portray the film).
Instead, we get a story that is obviously one of those "lowest common denominator" NYT bestseller type stories (I hadn't realized it was adapted from a NYT bestseller written by a Cosmo writer/editor -- but I'm not at all surprised after watching). The problem with storytelling like this is that it's so amateurish. The characters are not deep -- they're more like caricatures. They act like "characters" -- not PEOPLE. They don't have any subtle nuances. They just do what they've been brought into the story to do. It makes the story uninteresting and flat.
And I'm not sure how the book rolls out, but the movie isn't sequenced in a way that keeps the interest going. It drags far too much in the beginning, and while it's dragging, it doesn't put together the pieces of what actually happened in the main character's past very well at all. There are a lot of characters, and not enough context around any of them to bring them together into a story worth paying attention to.
And when the story finally gets told, it's sad and disturbing, yes -- but it's not really told through a lens where the viewer can learn anything meaningful about life or humanity. It's just... sad and disturbing. The "resolution" at the end isn't even triumphant. It's just... an ending.
Good acting from Mila Kunis (I didn't care for her narrating, though), and Jennifer Beals shone in her small role. A nice movie to look at for the most part, too -- but overall pretty boring and disappointing.
Instead, we get a story that is obviously one of those "lowest common denominator" NYT bestseller type stories (I hadn't realized it was adapted from a NYT bestseller written by a Cosmo writer/editor -- but I'm not at all surprised after watching). The problem with storytelling like this is that it's so amateurish. The characters are not deep -- they're more like caricatures. They act like "characters" -- not PEOPLE. They don't have any subtle nuances. They just do what they've been brought into the story to do. It makes the story uninteresting and flat.
And I'm not sure how the book rolls out, but the movie isn't sequenced in a way that keeps the interest going. It drags far too much in the beginning, and while it's dragging, it doesn't put together the pieces of what actually happened in the main character's past very well at all. There are a lot of characters, and not enough context around any of them to bring them together into a story worth paying attention to.
And when the story finally gets told, it's sad and disturbing, yes -- but it's not really told through a lens where the viewer can learn anything meaningful about life or humanity. It's just... sad and disturbing. The "resolution" at the end isn't even triumphant. It's just... an ending.
Good acting from Mila Kunis (I didn't care for her narrating, though), and Jennifer Beals shone in her small role. A nice movie to look at for the most part, too -- but overall pretty boring and disappointing.