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Estie888
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Baby Reindeer (2024)
A very hard watch
You shouldn't forget one thing while watching: most of us are watching from the comfort of a sane mind free of major trauma of the like. If you make it to episode 6, you get the insight into Donny's mind and that might relieve you from the frustration that engulfs you every time Donny doesn't tell Martha off, shout at her, block her, report her, or even beat her to pulp. That's what we feel we would do, but Donny isn't us, and there are plenty of Donnys out there.
Apart from being a good showing of a stalking situation especially with the usual gender roles reversed, it gives a great representation of how a traumatized person relates to any kind of attention - or dare I say love - they can scoop up.
Definitely a very hard watch, not only because of depictions of sexual violence or of downspiral into drugs and self-destruction, but also because of this intricate form of self-harm that I'm afraid numerous people live in - at least in their own unique way.
If you take away anything from this show, it should be understanding and acceptance, that people don't always react the way you would and they don't deserve blame for it. If anything, this should put a new twist to victim shaming and give realization that we don't know the full story. We almost never know the whole story.
Spiced with some serious acting, strong imagery and powerful music, this show hits hardest when you lay in bed at night and think about how all this, in fact, happened in real life.
Balancing on the border of a documentary, this is a strong one, a tough one, and one that stays with you.
Acide (2023)
I ran out of paper while taking notes of shortcomings
It starts out as a really good idea. I love movies around climate catastophes. Unfortunately, this move falls flat on the family drama and character building.
Not only are all characters extremely unlikeable, their conflicts are ridiculous regarding the circumstances. "You never helped with anything" was mom's main punch to dad, I mean yeah, that seems really important when acid is falling from the sky. I started taking notes about mistakes/plot holes/ bad logic, and the list had 26 items by the end of the film.
Some of them iclude the constant fighting and crying, the unethical/immoral actions of the protagonists and the extreme stupidity they convey.
From deciding to drive out to the unknown to another country instead of their relatively close home through failing to gather resources in shelters they find, going out in the acid rain instead of waiting it out (for example in the hangar - they could drive the car in and have double protection), kicking out innocent injured people from their car, to the constant tantrums of annoying teenager who I ended up referring to only as expletives in my notes, they make all bad, questionable and illogical moves all throughout, I found myself not caring for any of the characters by the end.
Mom was made superfluous quite quick, dad's allergies towards the ex-wife's side of family kicks in real quick and starts heading back to his girlfriend, making their whole ordeal up to that point completely pointless.
The military trucks can't proceed in low foliage, forcing them to walk, when the teen girl throws a completely unreasonable, out-of-the-blue tantrum in the middle of a forest laying face down with the acidic clouds approaching (she even shouts "leave me alone!"- are you serious?!), causing her and her dad to get seperated from the group that was heading to certain safety.
They stumble upon a house with a mom and a sick son, who they not only criticize for not sharing their limited resources, but who they end up leaving for dead, taking their car, their only lifeline, only to get into another ridiculous fight in the middle of a dark field in acid rain waiting for a GPS signal (the mere existence of which is stupid in itself). Dad still ends up driving off the road into pitch dark fields, which is always a good idea.
When you think this couldn't get any worse, the girl storms off in anger, everything still dripping of acid, pitch dark, making her dad chase her through acid pools - and oh, by the way they leave the engine running, because the next gas station must be around the corner, totally not eaten away by acid, so no worries. Girl climbs a metallic structure getting herself in danger, forcing dad to rescue her yet again, the ordeal causing him serious injury.
They end up in a totally undamaged shelter (looks like a stadium) while all buildings around the area literally crumbled by this point. Interesting. Girl, upon learning that dad's girlfriend is also dead, decides to be a brat for one last time and not tell him, keep him in the dark, while he recovers from a double amputation.
So she caused them to get seperated from the military-lead group and her dad ending up with zero legs all because her constant crying, tantrums and mood swings.
The premise of a pair of functional adults with a car, homes and close available resources make the decision to run around in the open under the sky with acid rain clouds into unknown territory is infuriating in itself. Doing it while making the viewer absolutely immune to their distress is an achievement. When the dad shows his straight up lack of humanity towards anyone exept his girlfriend at home, who we can see 3 times, we no longer care if any of them live.
I mean can you make characters more unlikeable than these?
All this is crowned by not getting anything close to an explanation or hint on what was going on, why, or what was to come. It fails to be a climate catastrophe movie and fails to be a drama it so desperately wants to be.
Awful.
La jefa (2022)
A great start spoiled entirely
It started out good. It was interesting, the characters were mysterious, the motivation for both mains was there.
Then Sofia moves to Beatriz and the madness begins. You cannot understand what her problem is. She never says she wants out, and even when offered an opportunity to leave, she stays. She acts as if she was forced, hurt or enslaved by Beatriz, while none of that is true.
At the end, she ends up a robber and murderer. I nearly lost it when she actually yelled out "I don't know what I want!" - do you really want your main character be that dumb and evil?
The summary of the movie says 'it's too late to get out' . Not true. It never gets to that point where she is abused in any way. Beatriz offers her to leave with no consequences more than once. Get out of what? She doesn't even try, she just f...s up everyone and leaves.
By the way, at the end, she does not seem to give a s... of her boyfriend anymore, she just packs the cash and jewellery. The movie makes her a common criminal.
And all this from a woman who we see pray to God multiple times in the movie.
Also, one thought: how the hell did she think this would work? Was she hoping her boyfriend would never find out anything? Not find the marks of a full-term pregnancy and a birth or cesarian on her body? How stupid is she?!
The second half is just a mess, too bad, after a good start.
If the point was to turn the protagonist into the villain, Beatriz's story should have been told and made victim. But the last moment of her attacking Sofia kind of states her position as a villan too.
Such a mess.
All I really care about at this point is if Max is okay. Woof.