A shy young girl called Alicia goes on a trip to a remote area of Chile for a vacation. When there, she begins to feel threatened by her companions. Before long she starts to experience strange events and the others begin to become alarmed by her behaviour.
This is a real slow-burner of a movie. It hints at all manner of things and remains to the end somewhat enigmatic. It's all about tone and feel. Not a great deal really happens in Magic Magic, so in order to appreciate it you need to just go with its rhythms. It's helped a lot by fine acting; especially lead Juno Temple who puts in another fearless performance. I saw her in the recent Killer Joe in which she was very good and here she is even better in a pretty complex role. Also impressive was Michael Cera who played the annoying man-child Brink who is involved in most of the amusing moments. The cast do well but the group itself is a very strange one in which you probably wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with yourself.
The combination of a paranoid central character with the mysterious foreign setting means that there is often some uncertainty about whether Alicia's problems are psychological or if there is some strange supernatural source in some way involved. By the end there is still a level of doubt and ambiguity on this, although others may have more definite views. For a thriller it's a little too subtle for its own good perhaps, it maybe more accurately could be described as a character study. Either way it does have an interesting ambiance that kept my attention.
This is a real slow-burner of a movie. It hints at all manner of things and remains to the end somewhat enigmatic. It's all about tone and feel. Not a great deal really happens in Magic Magic, so in order to appreciate it you need to just go with its rhythms. It's helped a lot by fine acting; especially lead Juno Temple who puts in another fearless performance. I saw her in the recent Killer Joe in which she was very good and here she is even better in a pretty complex role. Also impressive was Michael Cera who played the annoying man-child Brink who is involved in most of the amusing moments. The cast do well but the group itself is a very strange one in which you probably wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with yourself.
The combination of a paranoid central character with the mysterious foreign setting means that there is often some uncertainty about whether Alicia's problems are psychological or if there is some strange supernatural source in some way involved. By the end there is still a level of doubt and ambiguity on this, although others may have more definite views. For a thriller it's a little too subtle for its own good perhaps, it maybe more accurately could be described as a character study. Either way it does have an interesting ambiance that kept my attention.