Anna, or Mindscape as the original title goes, rides heavily on the presence and acting capabilities of its two main leads, Mark Strong as John, a psychologist with mind reading abilities, and Taissa Farmiga as Anna, his young and eerily disturbed patient. The film itself revolves around the idea that certain humans have developed their latent psychic abilities to such a degree that they can read the minds of others and thus help them overcome traumas and illnesses of the mind. Yeah, it's a bit Inception-esque, but it's different enough in style and atmosphere that you won't mind.
Still, the best part about this film is Mark Strong. His quiet dignified performance holds almost all of the scenes together and his interactions with Farmiga are very interesting to witness. Farmiga's performance suffers a touch from her relative inexperience, at least compared to Strong. You can definitely tell that she's acting in the earlier scenes, but she gets better quickly and her character as a whole nails the eery wonder child trope.
Plot-wise the film is nothing special, being relatively easy to predict and offering no real twists, but it's more of a moodpiece in any case. I would have liked for the actual mindscape scenes to be a bit more creative and the story as a whole to be a bit more overreaching in scope, but those lacks only mean that the film is merely good instead of great.
Mindscape is worth a watch if you're looking for a thriller with a more thoughtful tone and lacking in excessive brutality and gore.
Still, the best part about this film is Mark Strong. His quiet dignified performance holds almost all of the scenes together and his interactions with Farmiga are very interesting to witness. Farmiga's performance suffers a touch from her relative inexperience, at least compared to Strong. You can definitely tell that she's acting in the earlier scenes, but she gets better quickly and her character as a whole nails the eery wonder child trope.
Plot-wise the film is nothing special, being relatively easy to predict and offering no real twists, but it's more of a moodpiece in any case. I would have liked for the actual mindscape scenes to be a bit more creative and the story as a whole to be a bit more overreaching in scope, but those lacks only mean that the film is merely good instead of great.
Mindscape is worth a watch if you're looking for a thriller with a more thoughtful tone and lacking in excessive brutality and gore.