I watched the entire film waiting for a payoff. Through the discordant piano key jangling that was the soundtrack, through the dreary, dreary set, repetitive dialogue, artsy camera cuts and through it all, I was thinking of something we joke about at my book club. When a book is self important, draggy and boring, we always tell someone to google the writer to see if it was written by a college professor....it almost always is.
At the end of this film, I was feeling cheated out of two hours of my life and I couldn't wait to get to IMDb to check the writer. College professor...and not just any professor, James Franco's professor.
Ryder and Franco were irrelevant in this film as it was all about the dialogue. Ryder's role as play-write allowed the dialogue to be repeated over and over ad nauseum. It would have been an effective device had the dialogue been worth listening to once, let alone over again.
Good actors were unnecessary in this film as their major contribution was to flash looks at each other. The camera went from one to the next for an hour like a stale SNL sketch...worried look glancing at another actor, horrified look, puzzled look, knowing look, insane look... Culminating in the big payoff...
Spoiler!
Ryder's character totally breaks down, weeping on a stranger and seeing him as someone else, then screaming and wondering why he was touching her. Jangling discordant piano reaches a crescendo and we cut to a doctor explaining that dumdumdummmmmb she's not insane, she's had poison powder from South America that makes you tell the truth. They blow the powder into the victims face...she's been exposed over a long period and the effect of long term exposure causes neurological problems. Ryder, looking startled and wide eyed looks out through gauzy curtains, daydreams a beach walk as dialogue happens ...fade to black and the viewer shaking their heads in disgust that this "horror" movie was just a poorly written attempt at art....we know it when we see it and this isn't it.
"And I heard now, for the first time, the silver breath of wind in the ash tree whispering above me as I saw the shadows of the slender leaves tremble against the skin on my leg"
A whole movie of dialogue just like that...save yourself two hours and rent anything else with any of these actors in it.
At the end of this film, I was feeling cheated out of two hours of my life and I couldn't wait to get to IMDb to check the writer. College professor...and not just any professor, James Franco's professor.
Ryder and Franco were irrelevant in this film as it was all about the dialogue. Ryder's role as play-write allowed the dialogue to be repeated over and over ad nauseum. It would have been an effective device had the dialogue been worth listening to once, let alone over again.
Good actors were unnecessary in this film as their major contribution was to flash looks at each other. The camera went from one to the next for an hour like a stale SNL sketch...worried look glancing at another actor, horrified look, puzzled look, knowing look, insane look... Culminating in the big payoff...
Spoiler!
Ryder's character totally breaks down, weeping on a stranger and seeing him as someone else, then screaming and wondering why he was touching her. Jangling discordant piano reaches a crescendo and we cut to a doctor explaining that dumdumdummmmmb she's not insane, she's had poison powder from South America that makes you tell the truth. They blow the powder into the victims face...she's been exposed over a long period and the effect of long term exposure causes neurological problems. Ryder, looking startled and wide eyed looks out through gauzy curtains, daydreams a beach walk as dialogue happens ...fade to black and the viewer shaking their heads in disgust that this "horror" movie was just a poorly written attempt at art....we know it when we see it and this isn't it.
"And I heard now, for the first time, the silver breath of wind in the ash tree whispering above me as I saw the shadows of the slender leaves tremble against the skin on my leg"
A whole movie of dialogue just like that...save yourself two hours and rent anything else with any of these actors in it.