This was so bad it was good.
We were 11 minutes into this when my wife first said to me: "This is rubbish". I tried to defend it on the basis that it could only get better. I expected that the film would become more subtle as events unraveled. I expected my expectations to be confounded. I was mistaken. The film starts off with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and becomes ever more preposterous thereafter
All 7 characters are unlikeable. Every character is a two-dimensional stereotype: The banker snorts coke (natch); the pregnant lesbian wears dungarees (to a posh party); The ageing lesbian is a professor specializing is some niche of feminism; there's an ageing hippy (who spouts about broken Western medicine); every female character is extremely high achieving and they pepper most of their dialogue with references to strong women and post-post feminism; the men are all buffoons. It's all so wearily 2017. I hoped these lazy stereotypes would be thrown off as the film progressed, thereby confounding our - i.e. the viewers - lazy pigeon-holing. Unfortunately, the clichés remained in place until the bitter end.
The dialogue is execrable: these people are friends yet they talk to each other with contempt. April (Patricia Clarkson) cannot talk without directing a scathing insult to whomsoever she is addressing. Yet, no one ever picks her up on it: they either ignore the insult or respond with a feeble defence that enforces the cliché of their character.
At one point, there is an attack on the profession of the banker. Just in case some viewers wanted further confirmation as to how morally high-brow this film really is.
The story is contrived beyond belief. It's trying way too hard to be clever.
This film marks the high-water mark of the liberal elite.
We were 11 minutes into this when my wife first said to me: "This is rubbish". I tried to defend it on the basis that it could only get better. I expected that the film would become more subtle as events unraveled. I expected my expectations to be confounded. I was mistaken. The film starts off with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and becomes ever more preposterous thereafter
All 7 characters are unlikeable. Every character is a two-dimensional stereotype: The banker snorts coke (natch); the pregnant lesbian wears dungarees (to a posh party); The ageing lesbian is a professor specializing is some niche of feminism; there's an ageing hippy (who spouts about broken Western medicine); every female character is extremely high achieving and they pepper most of their dialogue with references to strong women and post-post feminism; the men are all buffoons. It's all so wearily 2017. I hoped these lazy stereotypes would be thrown off as the film progressed, thereby confounding our - i.e. the viewers - lazy pigeon-holing. Unfortunately, the clichés remained in place until the bitter end.
The dialogue is execrable: these people are friends yet they talk to each other with contempt. April (Patricia Clarkson) cannot talk without directing a scathing insult to whomsoever she is addressing. Yet, no one ever picks her up on it: they either ignore the insult or respond with a feeble defence that enforces the cliché of their character.
At one point, there is an attack on the profession of the banker. Just in case some viewers wanted further confirmation as to how morally high-brow this film really is.
The story is contrived beyond belief. It's trying way too hard to be clever.
This film marks the high-water mark of the liberal elite.