I am big fan of director Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways) and of actor Paul Giamatti in particular. Both have teamed up before with marvellous results, but this movie has got 1 problem that made me only rate it with 6 stars though:
The bad:the middle part of this story stretches out too long, with several quite tedious scenes, which could have easily been cut out of it without hurting the storyline. I started watching at my watch half way through several times because of this lack of spark and punch. Such a pity!
Fortunately this movie picked up momentum again towards the warmhearted Christmas spirited final, but I still will only award this movie with 6 stars (instead of 7) because I got bored at many moments during the somewhat tedious and long middle part.
The story: It's about a young student and his teacher, who both are lonely souls and although they cant stand each other at first, eventually slowly do bond with each other during a Christmas holiday. Acting by Paul Giamatti is masterful (as always), BUT some of the other actors fail to impress me.
Not the best of director Alexander Payne's work, but definitely still worth a watch, because it left me in my seat with a smile on my face and a feel good Christmas spirit of caring for one another!
The bad:the middle part of this story stretches out too long, with several quite tedious scenes, which could have easily been cut out of it without hurting the storyline. I started watching at my watch half way through several times because of this lack of spark and punch. Such a pity!
Fortunately this movie picked up momentum again towards the warmhearted Christmas spirited final, but I still will only award this movie with 6 stars (instead of 7) because I got bored at many moments during the somewhat tedious and long middle part.
The story: It's about a young student and his teacher, who both are lonely souls and although they cant stand each other at first, eventually slowly do bond with each other during a Christmas holiday. Acting by Paul Giamatti is masterful (as always), BUT some of the other actors fail to impress me.
Not the best of director Alexander Payne's work, but definitely still worth a watch, because it left me in my seat with a smile on my face and a feel good Christmas spirit of caring for one another!