Reviews

Big Shoutout to all the people involved in making this ! I am still working on to make up my mind who is right and who is not and what is the ideal way after watching this . Cinematographer sets the right tone and editing is on the point to cover the intercutting timelines . And what to say about those fabulous actors ! Everyone played to their strengths.

If any aspiring filmmaker would want to have a great experience, he should have worked on this sets !

And the child actors!! I wondered what director told them and what they understood. Some scenes are too intricate and intense for an adult also to comprehend and take a right decision to act and those kids acted like they knew all the content !

Love of all kinds and idealism to the core depicted in most sensible and sensitive way..

If you read , Catcher in the Rye and loved it , and if you watched , SCENT OF A WOMAN , this is a milder version of the mix of both .

Paul Giametti is not superior to whatever he has done before . Best thing is cinematography Color tone is apt for the mood and so is the choice of aspect ratio Falls short of the masterpieces I mentioned earlier yet an honest and subtle film.

I am not getting why the pace and structure of films are getting slowed and uneventful off late . There are random pieces of wisdom : like when Paul talks about women and morality and history and the joke on his own eyes Yet Nothing adds up to the character nor to the script as such Runtime is taken for granted it seems.

I watched this today, when I am a film-maker and struggling to find my own style and signature style of filmmaking. I chose to rewatch this movie, ( which I kinda liked and this stayed in my mind when I watched it some 15 years ago, a time where fimmaking was neither my career nor my aspiration ) The very story , of a therapist breaking into the mind of a troubled anthropologist and when he opens up his attachment, or rather love, for some animal ( gorillas here ) is a very good promise that holds a lot of scope for deep introspective conversations and can make the audience find another dimension of looking at things. But, unfortunately the script and film-making is more like a reading session from the book and even there are important points made, the camera neither lingers around where it needs to show and the edit cuts it off before even the feeling can sink in. An exemplary actor like Anthony Hopikins might need a few seconds more to let those piercing eyes hook onto the viewers, but the shots are busy to cut to make it slick and sharper. What is the point of meeting some demands like runtime or scene length crispiness if the core philosophy and meditativeness of such a story is not explored on screen. A film has to explore themes, keep the characters stay in more time and reduce constant preachiness and let audience feel and think, especially in stories like this. Lesson learned. I checked about the Director : Jon Turteltaub. He made movies like National Treasure : slick and stylish and edge of seat action thrillers. Wow. Those I love, but not the way he handled drama in this kind of script. Nevertheless I consider this movie and this direction as a guide for me, about how to not to make some movies. And Anthony Hopkins, Sir, shines well inspite of all the mess around.

One of the clever part of writing , is , kind of putting a disclaimer in a dialogue where we are put to a question " are you expecting another pretty woman movie here ?" Though the character who faced question denies , the plot unfolds more or less in the said classic movie's pattern , with the only difference being the reasons for girl choosing escort profession is her horrowing experience following a cyber bullying and when we wonder if this much extreme reaction could happen , even that question is asked and answered in the movie . That's the path in writing that saved this movie , almost every cliche scene is done but asks us to think in a different, even if it's a very slightly different one , perspective of the stock character and scenes.

Female lead , I slowly started liking her subtle performance; male lead matched her .

Overall it's a decent watch , if watched in parts.

Works well if you have those experiences, either on indie film scenario or film school life .

Script has m all cliches / tropes and mocks them and connects almost every point And Catherine Keener is a delightful watch showcasing the classic plethora of existential crises in a budding actors life.

The basic premise was interesting but also sounded familiar in umpteen of such genre movies . But the performance of Rebecca Hall as a woman who is burdened by grief caused by the unexpected death of her husband, a man to whom she had been married to 14 years , and the death being a suicide , and she got no clue of the reason why that man could have done it .. the mix of this sorrow and frustration and anger and adjusting to the life as a loner .. and sudden appearances of supernatural phenomenon .. so many layers of character And how she pulled all them off !

Delightful watch as long as her eyes keep radiating the intensity of the situations.

I loved the story line Woman who loves a man for his ideals , gives up her persona to build a home with him, and he throws his ideals away to keep her happy , as per his assumptions , They both love each other But definitions of love, never changed for her But , drastically, for him Change vs love

Basic human dilemma ever Some weird comic presentation of college love scenes , distracting otherwise poetic and to the point narration of love story between the leads Deepti Naval, I am watching her , 40 years later this movie is made and she looks immortal and lovely That's the beauty of her as well as cinema Farook, grows on you with his subtle performance in a slowly metamorphic character

A movie as relevant as it will be forever