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bam thwok posted:Totally opposite opinion here. I couldn't tell if the problem was because of source material (I.e. Adhering to a specific take on a work itself loosely based on real events) but this was a mess somehow of both plot holes and contrivances. Great performances, excellent costume design/production, but otherwise a huge let down. I share this apparently very minority opinion of this film, and I'll also add that I thought Amy Adams' performance was woeful. Her character is a tedious and neurotic spiv whose ruin I found myself craving the whole movie through. Jennifer Lawrence's character, who was clearly supposed to be the actual 'crazy' one, was far more interesting and relatable. There's a good reason why Irving's narration in the first 30 minutes calls Sydney a genius at least a half a dozen times; it was because Adams looked anything but. She looks like she's in the throes of some sort of fugue state, utterly disconnected from the reality around her. I swear, Amy Adams must have one of the smallest expressive ranges among A-list actors and I can't understand why she keeps getting cast in poo poo. I have never seen her play a character that I wasn't dying to see fail. That could be because she happens to play characters I just hate for some reason, but I think she's terrible anyway. She's so utterly outshone by Jennifer Lawrence in this its ludicrous to me that anybody is praising her work at all. Christian Bale I usually don't think particularly highly of, but he nails his character here. I wouldn't put it up as one of the greatest performances ever, but it's well beyond competent. Lawrence, as I've hinted at, absolutely kills it. Woman can play anything. She's someone everybody's watching for a drat good reason. Bradley Cooper is Bradley Cooper. Yeah, okay. The key problem I have with the film plot-wise is that the characters are not rational actors in relation to their circumstances. That's not in itself a problem at all. Arguably, if characters were always rational, there wouldn't be a story at all. But the issue becomes a dire one when the characters' irrationality is impenetrable to the audience. When they're not making good choices, and you can't figure out their reasoning in making bad choices, they don't come across as flawed and complex characters. They just seem like idiots. And that's how the players in this movie seemed to me. I wasn't rooting for any of them. It's only Rosalyn's madness that was in any way relatable or endearing. Irving came close, but then everything he does comes back to his infatuation with Sydney in the end and I'm just like "gently caress, what?" and he loses all credibility in my eyes. See this film, but see it because it's one of those films that's dead-set to be considered an Extremely Important Film and you're just isolating yourself from a major piece of popular culture if you don't. I didn't think it was very good, but my reaction to it is only prompted by the unending praise it's receiving. It's a perfectly watchable film, but that's about it in my opinion. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2013 14:53
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 21:42 |
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