Gideon58's Reviews

The Sure Thing
In a movie decade that was all about teen comedies, 1985's The Sure Thing was a stand out piece of entertainment that works thanks to a charismatic performance by the star and a proven craftsman in the director's chair.

The story opens at a New England college right before Christmas vacation. Walter "Gib" Gibson (John Cusack) is a smart and funny loafer who can't get a date but his best friend, who is going to UCLA invites him to California, having arranged a date for him with a girl who will have sex with him, no questions asked. Allison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) is a tightly wound bookworm who writes down her entire life in her day planner and is planning a trip to UCLA to see her boyfriend, Jason, who is a law student there. Three guesses which two people end up hitchhiking to California together?

This sparkling romantic comedy is anchored by a smart and funny screenplay by Steve Bloom and Jonathan Roberts that actually is a contemporary re-thinking of the classic It Happened One Night where we find two people, who have absolutely nothing in common, thrown together in an impossible situation and, eventually finding romantic common ground. Yes, we know how this film is going to end about fifteen minutes in, but the journey there is so much fun and does offer a surprise or two along the way.

There are a couple of minor plot points that are hard to reconcile but don't get in the way of the fun. It's hard to buy this guy Gib is the smartest, funniest, and best looking guy on campus and can't get a date. I also didn't understand Gib's little fantasy sequences about the sure thing, a girl he's never met. Nevertheless, we let that go and enjoy the very slow burn of the relationship between Gib and Allison. It can't be denied that a lot of that burn is supplied, not through dialogue, but by the sensitive and detailed direction by Rob Reiner, who allows his camera's eye to tell as much of the story as the script does.

John Cusack lights up the screen in one of his most effervescent performances and creates a viable chemistry with Zuniga, whose character comes off initially very unlikable, but watching her icy exterior melt under Gib's charm is such a pleasure. A few familiar faces pop up along the way in supporting roles, including Anthony Edwards, Tim Robbins, John Putch, and a very classy cameo from Viveca Lindfors as a college professor. Nicollette Sheridan, who would gain fame later on television, is sex on legs, making her film debut in the title role, but it's Cusack in front of the camera and Reiner behind it that makes this one a winner.

The Color of Money
After six previous Oscar nominations and being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, the late Paul Newman finally won his only competitive Oscar for his 100 megawatt performance in 1986's The Color of Money, an in-name-only sequel to The Hustler that provides a compelling story with fascinating lead characters that doesn't rely on the legacy of the first film.

It's 25 years after The Hustler when we find Eddie Felson has settled into a comfortable existence as a liquor salesman who has left pool behind him, but all that changes when he meets Vince Lauria (Tom Cruise), a dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks beast on the pool table and his smart and sexy girlfriend, Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio). Eddie sees a way back into the game by mentoring Vincent so that he can participate in an important tournament in Atlantic City. Unfortunately, as deadly as Vince is at the pool table, he is totally clueless about the art if the hustle and fights Eddie's training tooth and nail.

The Oscar nominated screenplay by Richard Price is vividly smart and quietly evocative, establishing the Eddie Felson as a new character who had never been featured in another film. There are no flashbacks to the events of the first film and the only hints we have of Eddie's previous cinematic past are through other characters who knew Eddie back in the day and are shocked to see him mentoring Vincent. Eddie doesn't talk about why he stopped playing pool until about 35 minutes into the running time. We don't really get insight into the Eddie of the first film until the heartbreaking scene where Eddie realizes he has been hustled.

It is Martin Scorsese's direction that is the greatest tool in constructing the strongest element of the film and that is the relationship between Eddie, Vince, and Carmen. It is so much fun watching Eddie initially play Vince and Carmen until he realizes that Carmen is the brains of the duo and decides to use that to his and, eventually to Vince's advantage. Scorsese's camerawork lays bare the relationship between Carmen and Vincent and shows it being bent but never broken.

The film is handsomely mounted, including some superb editing by Scorsese's long time editor Thelma Schoonmaker and Robbie Robertson's music frames the story perfectly. Even though Newman has done better work, it was nice to see the Academy finally recognize Newman after all those years and Mastrontonio's rich performance earned her a supporting nomination as well. Cruise completely invests in a character who isn't terribly bright and wears all of his emotions on his sleeve, which was a real departure for the actor and he never allows Newman to blow him off the screen either. Newman and Scorsese fans will find a lot to love here.

Good write-up. Sounded a tad spoilery at points but I have not seen the movie so I wouldn’t know.

I do plan on seeing it some time though. I didn’t like the first film that much, but I do like me some Scorsese. And well, Newman is generally always a pleasure and I like the concept of the movie. Maybe I’ll get to it some day.

Don't let the fact that you didn't like The Hustler keep you from watching this. Though I think he's done better work, Newman's performance alone makes this worth watching.

Go (1999)
Go is an exhausting 1999 crime drama which attempts an unconventional storytelling method that's been done before and much better elsewhere and attempts to blind the viewer to its partial success with a lot of movie making pyrotechnics.

At its core, this is a pretty simple story of a drug deal gone wrong, specifically involving a group of kids who work at the same supermarket and how this drug deal has some of the kids involved in a hit and run and others being chased by some dangerous criminals in Las Vegas.

The screenplay by John August (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) comes off as sort of second rate Tarantino, attempting to tell one story from several points of view, something akin to Jackie Brown. However, the difference between this story and Jackie Brown is that the points of the octagon that made up the Jackie Brown screenplay do eventually connect by the film's conclusion but the octagonal points of this story go in a couple of bizarre directions, that really have nothing to do with the genesis of the storytelling octagon...a drug deal gone bad. The title cards featuring the names of the characters involved in each point of the view of the story come off as simultaneously pompous and condescending.

Director Doug Liman attempts to cover up the deficiencies in the script by bombarding the viewer with music video type direction, involving a lot of headache-inducing camerawork and editing, that makes the viewer work a lot harder than need be. There is a beautifully mounted car chase on the Las Vegas trip that displays a lot of skill with action sequences, but really has very little to do with the story at hand.

The performances are a matter of taste and just get lost in the middle of all the cinematic trickery employed by Liman. Timothy Olyphant steals every scene he's in as the drug dealer, the same way he did in The Girl Next Door. Sarah Polley was interesting as Ronna and William Fichtner is wasted in a thankless role, but this film was definitely a case of style over substance.

Neighbors (1981)
The 1981 black comedy Neighbors will always be remembered as the cinematic swan song of the late John Belushi, which is probably the only legacy this ultra bizarre comedy deserves.

Belushi plays Earl Reese, a quiet and unassuming guy who lives in a secluded suburb with his wife, Enid (Kathryn Walker). This suburb consists of Earl's house and the rundown house next door, that looks something like Norman Bates' house, no other sign of civilization for miles around. Earl and Enid find their quiet but dull lives turned upside down when the obnoxious Vic (Dan Aykroyd) moves into the vacant house with his wife, Ramona (Cathy Moriarty) and what follows is the most illogical and crazy things between this two couples that defies description.

This film does have a couple of things going for it, including some stylish directorial flourishes, courtesy of John G; Alvidsen, who won an Oscar for Rocky. Alvidsen sets up a very atmospheric canvas on which this story unfolds, which I'm assuming is supposed to be some sort of lampoon of shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Even the initial presentation of the story's setting...these two houses out in the middle of nowhere with a giant electrical tower between them. And you just know that electrical tower is going to figure into the story somewhere. Another Rocky alumnus, Bill Conti, provided the deliciously clever music which fits the bizarre goings on like a glove.

It's the story that really hurts this one. Larry Gelbart's screenplay, based on a novel by Thomas Berger, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The viewer is never given a handle on exactly who Vic and Ramona are...first we think they're con artists because Vic borrows money from Earl to buy food and then cooks a meal instead. Then we think they might be swingers because Ramona keeps throwing herself at Earl and Vic completely charms Enid. They pretend to not care when Earl accidentally dumps their car in a swamp and then later want to report him to the police. This poor schlub Earl keeps getting dumped on for no good reason and for some reason, his wife Enid is oblivious to the whole thing and wishes Earl would just be nicer to the new neighbors. As the film neared its conclusion, I was sure was going to get a "and then I woke up" scene but it never happened.

Despite the messed up story, the four leads do deliver top-notch performances that almost make this thing work. Belushi is beautifully cast against type and is very convincing as the suburban sad sack. If the truth be told, two of his funniest scenes are in the bathroom preparing for encounters with Ramona that are completely sans dialogue. Aykroyd is an appropriate mixture of greasy and creepy as Vic and Cathy Moriarty is sex on legs as Ramona. Something definitely got lost in the translation getting this from the page to the screen, but as the final work of John Belushi, it is definitely worth checking out.

The Ides of March
George Clooney offers his own interpretation of the expression "Politics makes strange bedfellows" with 2011's The Ides of March, a somewhat predictable but still compelling look at dirty politics and the bodies that are often left in the wake.

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Meyers, an idealistic young campaign staffer for a democratic governor (Clooney) who makes the fatalistic mistake of agreeing to meet with the campaign manager of the governor's opponent, who offers Meyers a job. Though Meyers turns down the job, the mere meeting becomes the catalyst for a series of events that could spell the end of Meyer's career, further complicated by his involvement with a pretty young intern (Evan Rachel Wood).

The Oscar nominated screenplay by Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon is a surprisingly smooth melange of political machination and personal ambition and how the blurring of the same can destroy careers and lives. The transformation that the character of Stephen Meyers goes through during the course of this story is both believable and disturbing. Watching the admiration in his eyes for the governor in the opening scenes and the look in his eyes during his final confrontation with the governor are convincing and a little sad. This is a guy who, in his heart, knew of the dirt involved in the political machine and actually seemed to believe he could rise above it.

Clooney's direction isn't quite as subtle as his screenplay, but he definitely gets his points across. Director Clooney is initially protective of actor Clooney, initially making this dynamic liberal governor look like the second coming, but as his layers are stripped away, Clooney the director does lower his guard around that governor, evidenced in his final confrontation with Meyers and the scene where he has to fire Paul Zara (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman), where he is provided a sense of protection through the director.

The film is handsomely mounted and Akexandre Desplat's music underscores the action beautifully. Gosling gives a solid leading man performance and Clooney makes the path the government takes completely believable. Hoffman and Paul Giamatti also offer solid support in a political drama that doesn't offer a lot of surprises, but delivers a believable, if at times, unpleasant story.

Red (2010)
The action genre got a fresh coat of paint in 2010 with Red, an ultra-slick and sophisticated spy thriller that sizzles on all four cylinders thanks to some deft scripting, indescribable set pieces and technical gadgetry, and a cast of professionals in front of the camera.

A reporter for the NY Times is found murdered with a list of people who are dead or are being targeted for execution. One of those people is a retired CIA agent named Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) who decides to reassemble his old team (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox) in order to get the bottom of this. Thrown into the mix is a government pensions case worker (Mary-Louise Parker) who has developed a relationship with Frank over the phone, which has been bugged, so she becomes a target as well.

Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber hit a bullseye with their crafting of this slam bang spy adventure that is a near perfect blend of enough technical gadgetry for five James Bond movies and three dimensional characters whose experience and skills never turn them into superheroes. These are human beings caught up in some extraordinary circumstances triggered by their history and not always having the ability to control the consequences of their history.

The most intriguing part of this story was the back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys and how it kept changing thanks to some incredible state of the art technology unlike anything I have ever seen. There's a scene near the beginning of the film where Frank stashes the case worker in a hotel room in New Orleans and it only takes the bad guys a matter of hours to locate her. Or when the case worker gets nabbed by the bad guy later while almost simultaneously Frank is in the bad guy's house threatening his family. Both sides of the story stay one step ahead of each other, often by minutes, but which side is ahead changes at a startling pace throughout, courtesy of red herrings and false stars that require complete attention that totally pays off.

Bouquets to director Robert Schwentke for mounting an eye-popping action adventure populated with actual human beings that we actually come to care about. I've complained in other reviews about actors being too old to be doing action movies, but no such thing going on with Bruce Willis here. He is the personification of understated cool and a viable action hero, over three decades since Die Hard. I loved the chemistry generated by Willis and Parker, it reminded me of Dean Martin and Stella Stevens in The Silencers. John Malkovich also steals every scene he's in as the shell-shocked Marvin. Mention should also be made of a classy cameo by veteran Ernest Borgnine as a CIA records keeper. Fans of Willis and the genre will find gold here.

To Kill a Mockingbird
A 1962 Oscar nominee for Best Picture, To Kill a Mockingbird is a poignant and powerful story of family, justice, moral integrity, and bigotry that still conjures a strong emotional response, thanks primarily to its highly principled central character.

Gregory Peck gives the performance of his career as Atticus Finch, an attorney and widowed father of two in 1932 Alabama, who has been asked to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman, a decision that, of course, divides the townspeople. There is also a subplot involving Finch's children, Scout and Jem, who are obsessed with what is going on next door at the Radley residence, where it is rumored that the father has had his son, Boo, locked up in the basement since he was a child.

This film has always been thought of as a courtroom drama, but the film really is a character study of this character Atticus Finch. Horton Foote's Oscar-winning screenplay, based on Harper Lee's novel, leisurely establishes the character as a family man, first and foremost. He would walk through fire for Scout and Jem and tries to be as honest with them about any subject that might come up with them. You can see the pain in his eyes when he is forced to shoot a rabid dog to protect his children. He understands the often disturbing aspects of his work and does what he can to protect his children from it. There is a lovely scene at the beginning of the movie that actually infers that Atticus feels guilty about his wife's death and agonizes over his powerlessness over the situation.

Foote's screenplay is almost equally divided between establishing Atticus and his family and the trial which is tearing the town apart. The trial doesn't even begin until halfway through the film, but the tension that the trial is causing bubbles underneath the surface during the first half of the story.

Director Robert Mulligan (Love with the Proper Stranger, Summer of '42) received his only Best Director nomination for his sensitive mounting of this delicately layered story, anchored by Gregory Peck's quietly authoritative performance as Atticus Finch, which won him the 1962 Oscar for Best Actor. Brock Peters makes a strong impression as the defendant in Finch's trial and Mary Badham's exuberant tomboy, Scout, actually earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, an award she ironically lost to another child actress, Patty Duke for The Miracle Worker. This film also marked the film debut of a young Robert Duvall as the traumatized Boo Radley, a role that didn't allow Duvall to speak but he still made the most of it. A classic that earns its reputation as a classic.

Gold Diggers of 1935
The mad genius of cinematic dance direction, Busby Berkeley, scores again with Gold Diggers of 1935, a madcap musical romp that not only provides what fans expect from a Berkley musical, but a meatier screenplay than usual.

The setting for these comic and musical hi-jinks is the Wentworth Plaza Hotel, which is opening up for the summer season, during which they produce a musical production as a charity event. The principal players in this musical comedy of errors include Mrs. Prentiss (Oscar winner Alice Brady), a stingy millionairess who always finances the charity event. She is accompanied by her son Humboldt (Frank McHugh) and her daughter, Ann (Gloria Stuart). We also meet the hotel desk clerk, Dick Curtis (Dick Powell) who is engaged to the hotel secretary, Betty (Glenda Farrell). Also thrown into the mix is a down on his luck theater director named Nicoleff (Adolph Menjou) and an absent-minded millionaire named T. Mosely Thorpe (Hugh Herbert),

Mrs. Prentiss wants Ann to marry Thorpe, but Ann falls for Dick. Betty decides to blackmail Thorpe into marriage while Nicoleff manages to convince Mrs. Prentiss to let him direct the show, while he tries to squeeze some extra money out of her on the side.

Unlike previous Berkely musicals, this one has a really clever and funny screenplay based on the concepts of money and greed and what they do to people. The opening scenes of hotel staff members being schooled on how they are to split their tips with their supervisors are very funny, as are the scenes of Nicoleff manipulating Mrs. Prentiss and the ever resourceful Betty dumping Dick when she sees the opportunity to snag a millionaire.

Even with all this going on, we still get the one thing we expect from a Busby Berkley musical...spectacular dance numbers. Loved the opening number with the hotel staff dancing through their preparations for the hotel opening and "The Words are in my Heart", a memorable fantasy number that beings with Powell serenading Stuart and turning into an incredible production number featuring about 50 or 60 chorus girls playing white baby grand pianos. All of this takes a back seat to the "Lullaby of Broadway" finale, a mini-musical within the musical that features Powell and Wini Shaw as the single guests at a nightclub being entertained by a chorus of 200 tap dancers. This finale defies description and is the very essence of what Busby Berkley is all about. Berkely didn't care about the fact that his dance numbers almost always had nothing to do with realism and would be impossible to produce in a real theater. Berkley's mission was always finding a different way to cram as many dancers on a soundstage as possible and find a unique way to stage and photograph them and this finaale just might be his masterpiece. "Lullaby of Broadway" alone is worth the price of admission alone.

Even with all the focus on the dance numbers, Berkeley still manages to pull some terrific performances from his cast, especially Brady as Mrs. Prentiss and Menjou as Nicoleff, who steal every scene they're in. Classic musical fans will be in heaven here.

Crown Heights
Even though it's based on a true story, the 2017 drama Crown Heights is so manipulative and predictable, borrowing elements from similar films that have gone the same path we've seen before making the viewer want to weep for the entire system of justice in this country.

This is the story of a man named Colin Warner, who served over 21 years for a murder he didn't commit. Warner's protestations of his innocence of course fall on deaf ears, but his brother never gives up and is able to eventually get the conviction overturned.

Writer director Matt Ruskin has taken a true story and seems to have put a melodramatic spin on the events in an attempt to garner sympathy from the viewer. As in the Denzel Washington drama The Hurricane, Warner is instantly convicted of a felony crime with little or no real evidence. As in the recent Just Mercy, Colin's brother finally brings the transcripts of the trial to the right people and they figure out what really happened within a matter of months. The parallels between what happened in these other films and what happened in this one are just a little hard to swallow.

The scenes of Warner trying to adjust to prison life are a little hard to believe as well. Warner's attempted bucking of prison rules and regulations, including the actual striking of a corrections officer, just because he's an innocent man were also hard to swallow. It's hard to believe that he was so ignorant about the realities of life in prison, since when we first meet the character he is stealing a car and it is later revealed that he had a lengthy mug sheet dating back to his childhood. On the other hand, it was ridiculous watching the case against Warner fall apart with phrases like "I told them what they wanted to hear" and "I just wanted them to leave me alone."

Ruskins's approach to the story is melodramatic, but the story is well acted with a solid performance from LaKeith Stanford (Knives Out, Sorry to Bother You, Get Out) as Colin Warner and Nnamdi Asomugha as his brother, Carl, who also served as the film's producer. I wish Ruskin had brought the sincerity to the story that the actors brought to their roles. I hate that the final thought that lingered over me as the credits rolled was "What about the rest of the believed 120,000 innocent people in prison?"

Ad Astra
Despite a couple of dangling plot points, 2019's Ad Astra is a compelling sci-fi nail biter that, like Gravity, contains an emotional and human center that keeps the film from being just an exercise in CGI pyrotechnics.

Oscar winner Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, a legacy astronaut whose father was believed to have perished during a mission on the planet Neptune. Upon returning from his latest mission, Roy is informed that, not only might his father might still be alive, but that he has been keeping the fact that he is still alive a secret in order to complete his original mission. Roy is asked to travel to the moon and then to Mars in order to convey a message to his father on Neptune because the mission he is working on is a possible threat to the entire universe.

Director and co-screenwriter James Gray does a wonderful job of combining a contemporary science fiction adventure with a story of family dysfunction that rings completely true. I loved the basic premise that is set up here...a man who has worshiped his dad from childhood who has finally comes to terms with his death being faced with the possibility that dad might still be alive, It's through Gray's direction and Pitt's performance that we see Roy has come to terms with his father's passing because the conflicted emotions that this news has brought Roy come through loud and clear.

There were a couple plot points that confused me...there is a scene where Roy and one of his crews are attacked by an animal that resembles an orangutan and I couldn't figure out how this animal got into the module. I also didn't understand how Dad's mission threatened the entire universe, but I was able to let it go and concentrate on the big picture.

Gray offers some nice attention to details as well. We are told that the film is set "In the near future" and we're not sure what that means initially. It becomes clear at our first glimpse of the moon, we are shocked to see that it is partially civilized now, like a earthly city. I was also impressed with the way Roy had to go through a psychological evaluation after each leg of his mission.

Brad Pitt turns in the performance of his career, that clearly rivals his Oscar winning work in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood and Tommy Lee Jones is absolutely lovely as his father. Production values are first rate, especially cinematography, art direction/set direction, and sound. A solid space adventure that, like The Martian, is centered around a character that we love and want what he wants.

You're going to become a sci fi fan Gideon

I actually remember going to see this one and its sequel theatrically. Hard to believe it's been almost a decade now.

__________________
Look, Dr. Lesh, we don't care about the disturbances, the pounding and the flashing, the screaming, the music. We just want you to find our little girl.

I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, buddy, LOL!

Tarzan
The classic Edgar Rice Burroughs character was brought to the big screen in over 40 live action films and then Disney scored when they took a crack at it in a 1999 animated musical rethinking of Tarzan that provides a lot of what fans of the character might expect with a degree of substance that they might not.

This take on one of cinema's most legendary movie characters begins with the character as a baby and shows how the child ended up being raised by a family of apes. The young boy is observed growing up and believing he is an ape, though he can't explain why he looks different from the animals raising him. Tarzan (voiced by Tony Goldwyn) is content living as the animal he thinks he is until the arrival of Professor Porter (voiced by Nigel Hawthorne), his daughter, Jane (voiced by Minnie Driver) and their guide, Clayton (voiced by Brain Blessed). Porter and his daughter are there merely to study gorillas, but Clayton has a more mercenary agenda and after saving Jane's life and learning of Porter's plans, Tarzan does what he can to stop them while questioning his entire existence and who he really is.

This character has a long and distinguished history on the screen, dating all the way back to 1928 with Elmo Lincoln playing the starring role. Johnny Weissmuller is the actor most associated with the role, but from the little I know of these movies, these movies seem to start off pretty much where this one ends. This film, sensitively and without dialogue, dialogues how baby Tarzan actually ended up being raised by apes and the creators of this story never forget this fact. The main character is presented crawling through the jungle with his knuckles dragging. We're almost halfway through the film before we see the character stand upright for the first time.

I loved the fact that the focus of this particular story was Tarzan's confusion about who he is and not so much his romance with Jane. It's lovely when he needs to be alone he retreats to one particular branch on one particular tree, something akin to Superman's fortress of solitude. The jungle animals' loyalty to Tarzan was alternately amusing and moving. There were a couple of loving winks to the audience reminding us that we are watching a movie...there's a wonderful moment where some of the animals happen upon the Porters' campsite and they glance a teapot that looked just like Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.

The film features ah exuberant song score by Phil Collins that works perfectly with the story despite its contemporary style. The songs include "Two Worlds", "Strangers Like Me" "Son of Man" and the Oscar-winning "You'll Be in My Heart", which became a top-40 hit for Collins.

The animation is rich and a lot of the colors have an almost pastel quality to them that give the film a dreamy look. The film features a superior voice cast and mention should also be made of Glenn Close as Tarzan's ape mother, Rosie O'Donnell as his ape BFF and Wayne Knight as his elephant BFF. An engaging and energetic musical adventure that, caught in the right mood, could leave a lump in the throat.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The director of The Favourite is the creative force behind 2017's The Killing of a Sacred Deer, an edgy and unsettling psychological thriller that rivets the viewer to the screen for the most part, thanks to meticulous direction and solid performances, despite a disappointing climax.

Steven Murphy is an arrogant surgeon who is married and the father of two children. Unbeknownst to his family, Dr, Murphy has formed a relationship with a teenager named Martin, who is the son of a man who died on Dr. Murphy's operating table. Not long after meeting Steven's family and Steven meeting Martin's mother, Martin reveals his horrifying plan of vengeance, which involves Steven making an unspeakable sacrifice and when Steven refuses to take Martin's threat seriously, his family begins to fall apart in front of his very eyes, helpless to do anything about it.

Director and co-screenwriter Yorgos Lanthimos must be applauded for the undeniable style he has put into this often stomach-churning story, which is nothing like his more commercial work with The Favourite. He has given this often ugly and disturbing a pristine and antiseptic canvas and employed an intrusive manner to his camerawork...so much of the story is shot from great distances, forcing complete attention from the viewer making sure that we don't miss anything. The camera often moves at a frighteningly deliberate pace which puts the viewer on the edge of his chair wondering exactly what might be coming from around the corner.

The story unfolds just as slowly, with almost the entire first third of the film coming off as a red herring, which had this viewer completely snowed. When we are introduced to Steven and Martin at the beginning of the film, their relationship begins to appear inappropriate and by that, I mean sexual. There's a scene where Martin asks Steven to take off his shirt so that he can see the hair on his body and Steven actually does it. It's at this point, we realize the relationship is not sexual, but we still know there's something not right here, there's some kind of power that Martin has over Steven and we're clueless until Martin makes his deadly agenda clear. We don't understand how Martin's power in this scenario and we're not supposed to. Unfortunately, the finale disappoints as Steven's attempts to stop what is happening futile, which, in a way, renders the entire story futile.

On the technical side, the film is a masterpiece, featuring stunning cinematography, art direction/set direction, sound, and the creepiest music score since Wait Until Dark. Colin Farrell has rarely been better as the tortured Steven and Nicole Kidman adds another icy performance to her resume as his wife Anna. Barry Keoghan's star-making performance as Martin made the hair on the back of neck stand up. Lanthimos won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for his work here and I think he might have been robbed of a Oscar nomination as well.

Did they actually kill a deer in that movie? Or is it just the title that says that?

It's just the title of the movie and if, the truth be told, one thing about the movie that I didn't understand at all was the title.

No as Gideon said, the title is symbolic of the Greek Myth that this is sort of based on. I highly recommend it, it's really a fantastic movie. Not sure if you've seen Yorgos's other stuff?

__________________
Lists and Projects
Letterboxd