I love the idea of this movie, the ending is surprising and a brave motion.
Let me get to the critisicm I have that seems to be shared by others... the main female character "Sylvia" is the most unlikeable and annoying character I have ever seen in a movie where I truly believe the director did not want her to be unlikeable.
I firmly believe we are supposed to empathize with Sylvia, because there's no logical reason for why they emphasized the fact that she was innocent and a first time drug user, other than the fact they felt making her a junkie like her friend would result in people not liking her. I personally think this approach is a little bit insulting. Letting Sylvia be an addict would make more sense than all this happening the first time she gets high. It would explain the scene where her parents are begging her not to leave, a common scene with addicts. It would explain why she had cocain on her. They could use her coming down of the drug and realizing she left it in his car a reason for why she's so frantic and insane.
Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that seeing your friend get hit by a car would be traumatizing. But NOT to a level at which Sylvia is acting. Gloria wasn't even dead initially, she was just badly injured. We saw Sylvia was behaving completly normally seconds before the crash, then after it happens she starts acting like she dropped a bunch of acid along with the coke.
Why on Earth would ANYONE assume that a complete stranger hit your friend with their vehicle on purpose when she was hitchhiking in the middle of the road in complete darkness? Not to mention German even INSISTS that Sylvia call her parents, he doesn't take her phone initially. Then, to make this even more absurd, growing to the level of Sylvia being an alien and not a well-socialized and at least mildly educated teenager, SHE DOESNT KNOW WHAT CPR IS. So, if we're to believe she doesn't know what CPR is, then I guess seing someone pounding on her friends chest would lead her to assume he was physically assaulting her. So... now we're at a place where Sylvia thinks German attempted to murder them with his vehicle (even though he asked her to call someone for help, hasn't hurt her, and explained that he fell asleep) and now believes he finished the job off by pounding on her chest.
At this point, German has a dead teenager in his car that he killed via vehicular manslaughter, cocaine all over the place, and a witness to the crime that is adamant that she is panicking and going to tell the authorities that he committed intentional homicide, kidnapping, and physical assault. Who knows what the police would believe in this situation. But, you can understand German's frustration.
What follows is seemingly hours of him hunting Sylvia down in an attempt to convince her that he's not trying to kidnap her. I don't know what the goal was here.
And then at some point Sylvia taunts German about knowing his name, and when he finally gets her still enough to explain he just wants her to tell the police he acted in good faith, instead of just lying (because at this point he HAD stalked her and physically assaulted her) and saying okay, she proceeds to refuse and tell him he would be going to jail.
Last complaint that I can think of at the moment, we do not have a good enough understanding of Sylvia and Gloria's friendship to warrant the way Sylvia behaves. While she's running for her life from what she thinks is a derranged serial killer, all she can think to say every time she gets within inches of percieved death is "MURDERER!!!" You would think this guy stabbed her child in front of her or something. She cannot even get a grip long enough to fake being normal. And she's not even panicked, she's just ANGRY. She literally sacrifies her life because she wasn't willing to stop cussing this guy out over how mad she was at him for "murdering" her friend (keep in mind she thinks he killed her with chest compressions.)
I think something that could have been done to make this better would be if Sylvia was injured in the crash as well, and was also drug into the car while unconcious and regains conciousness only to have vague memories of German giving Gloria CPR, but in a foggy head injured state, it looked like some kind of sexual assault. She realizes that she's gravely injured and Gloria is dead and likely assaulted. German and her have some conversation, and the implications of what Sylvia thinks is happening is clear but subtle. At some point German decides to kill Sylvia because he can tell what she is thinking without her having to say it. Maybe he catches a glimpse of a text message she's attempting to secretly write where she indicates she's been beaten and kidnapped and he grabs her phone and smashes it. With this narrative, Sylvia could be attempting to be sweet and kind the whole time while obviously appearing terriried, and this would make her murder MUCH more gut wrenching.
I like the idea of the 2 male friends being in the area and getting blamed for the crime. I like the symbolism of German giving up on being the "nice guy" and getting no where because of it. I like the religous symbolism and the slight "twist" that's thrown in. We're fully expecting Sylvia to survive because once day hits, the angels are back to protect her. But in the world of this movie, we find out that the angels are always sleeping.
The message that karma is not real, God won't protect you, and sometimes you have to do what you have to do to stay on top is a refreshing stark contrast to what we see in most movie cliche's. It's jarring having such a beauitfully unique message completely shat on by a character that was so horribly written, I was routing for a scared child to get brutally murdered in an abandoned murdered countryside.
Let me get to the critisicm I have that seems to be shared by others... the main female character "Sylvia" is the most unlikeable and annoying character I have ever seen in a movie where I truly believe the director did not want her to be unlikeable.
I firmly believe we are supposed to empathize with Sylvia, because there's no logical reason for why they emphasized the fact that she was innocent and a first time drug user, other than the fact they felt making her a junkie like her friend would result in people not liking her. I personally think this approach is a little bit insulting. Letting Sylvia be an addict would make more sense than all this happening the first time she gets high. It would explain the scene where her parents are begging her not to leave, a common scene with addicts. It would explain why she had cocain on her. They could use her coming down of the drug and realizing she left it in his car a reason for why she's so frantic and insane.
Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that seeing your friend get hit by a car would be traumatizing. But NOT to a level at which Sylvia is acting. Gloria wasn't even dead initially, she was just badly injured. We saw Sylvia was behaving completly normally seconds before the crash, then after it happens she starts acting like she dropped a bunch of acid along with the coke.
Why on Earth would ANYONE assume that a complete stranger hit your friend with their vehicle on purpose when she was hitchhiking in the middle of the road in complete darkness? Not to mention German even INSISTS that Sylvia call her parents, he doesn't take her phone initially. Then, to make this even more absurd, growing to the level of Sylvia being an alien and not a well-socialized and at least mildly educated teenager, SHE DOESNT KNOW WHAT CPR IS. So, if we're to believe she doesn't know what CPR is, then I guess seing someone pounding on her friends chest would lead her to assume he was physically assaulting her. So... now we're at a place where Sylvia thinks German attempted to murder them with his vehicle (even though he asked her to call someone for help, hasn't hurt her, and explained that he fell asleep) and now believes he finished the job off by pounding on her chest.
At this point, German has a dead teenager in his car that he killed via vehicular manslaughter, cocaine all over the place, and a witness to the crime that is adamant that she is panicking and going to tell the authorities that he committed intentional homicide, kidnapping, and physical assault. Who knows what the police would believe in this situation. But, you can understand German's frustration.
What follows is seemingly hours of him hunting Sylvia down in an attempt to convince her that he's not trying to kidnap her. I don't know what the goal was here.
And then at some point Sylvia taunts German about knowing his name, and when he finally gets her still enough to explain he just wants her to tell the police he acted in good faith, instead of just lying (because at this point he HAD stalked her and physically assaulted her) and saying okay, she proceeds to refuse and tell him he would be going to jail.
Last complaint that I can think of at the moment, we do not have a good enough understanding of Sylvia and Gloria's friendship to warrant the way Sylvia behaves. While she's running for her life from what she thinks is a derranged serial killer, all she can think to say every time she gets within inches of percieved death is "MURDERER!!!" You would think this guy stabbed her child in front of her or something. She cannot even get a grip long enough to fake being normal. And she's not even panicked, she's just ANGRY. She literally sacrifies her life because she wasn't willing to stop cussing this guy out over how mad she was at him for "murdering" her friend (keep in mind she thinks he killed her with chest compressions.)
I think something that could have been done to make this better would be if Sylvia was injured in the crash as well, and was also drug into the car while unconcious and regains conciousness only to have vague memories of German giving Gloria CPR, but in a foggy head injured state, it looked like some kind of sexual assault. She realizes that she's gravely injured and Gloria is dead and likely assaulted. German and her have some conversation, and the implications of what Sylvia thinks is happening is clear but subtle. At some point German decides to kill Sylvia because he can tell what she is thinking without her having to say it. Maybe he catches a glimpse of a text message she's attempting to secretly write where she indicates she's been beaten and kidnapped and he grabs her phone and smashes it. With this narrative, Sylvia could be attempting to be sweet and kind the whole time while obviously appearing terriried, and this would make her murder MUCH more gut wrenching.
I like the idea of the 2 male friends being in the area and getting blamed for the crime. I like the symbolism of German giving up on being the "nice guy" and getting no where because of it. I like the religous symbolism and the slight "twist" that's thrown in. We're fully expecting Sylvia to survive because once day hits, the angels are back to protect her. But in the world of this movie, we find out that the angels are always sleeping.
The message that karma is not real, God won't protect you, and sometimes you have to do what you have to do to stay on top is a refreshing stark contrast to what we see in most movie cliche's. It's jarring having such a beauitfully unique message completely shat on by a character that was so horribly written, I was routing for a scared child to get brutally murdered in an abandoned murdered countryside.