Reviews

The trailers and reviews for this movie make it look like the story of a man conflicted and changed. I think that was the intent but I don't feel like it succeeded. I was very excited about going this movie so was pretty disappointed. The film can't decide if it is a story of a vet with PTSD trying to find his way or a story about the pipeline so it tells neither well.

The plot seems to be that the main character has PTSD to the degree that he can't touch his pregnant wife's belly to feel the baby, then he goes to write some stories at the pipeline and is magically healed by his new found engagement with the protestors and some hokey pseudo-native American rituals.

The main problem is you really don't know anything about the internal world or motivations of the main character. You have no idea when he was in the service. How long he's been married. Whether he wants the baby or not. You really have minimal idea of what his politics are. There are a couple of lines that were maybe supposed to give a sense of his politics but were delivered so flatly that it was hard to know his intent. He rarely shares his actual emotions and thoughts so any change is sort of vague. You really don't connect with him or understand him. The only thing you know is that he's haunted by his military service.

The plot line is superficial and it feels like a bunch of scenes spliced together that had a general intent but not a good script guiding them.

Cate Blanchett's performance is spectacular. The actual film is not. I am so tired of films that basically have no plot but a bunch of critics tell everyone it's a brilliant film. It's like everyone gets paid to tell you you are just stupid if you don't understand this brilliant piece of art.

This movie has a lot of little storylines going on but none of them take center stage. Most of them have no impact on anyone. And the major one doesn't get resolved and you don't actually know what happened. The one that is shown in the trailers about her being distracted by noise means almost nothing in terms of the actual story. There are three scenes where a cell phone is shown filming the main character. Someone is filming and texting negative comments but you never find out who or why. This appears to have no actual purpose in the story.

The saddest thing is that most of the scenes needed to tell a good story are there. But they are surrounded by scenes that have nothing to do with anything significant and there's so many of those that just bury anything that might be there.

I don't know why people loved this film. The acting is great but the message seems to be no matter how your mom treats you, she loves you or you should assume she loves you. I wanted something to hang onto at the end and left feeling like I wish I hadn't watched it.