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The Square


The Square (2017) N

A curator of an art museum in Stockholm tries to wade through professional and personal difficulties.


All I knew about The Square was that IMDb tags it comedy and drama and it's related to modern art. Somehow I missed the comedy altogether (was there something I was supposed to laugh at?) and due to extremely uninteresting characters the drama misses its mark too. What remains is half-hearted critique of contemporary art and failing attempt to put equal sign between hypocrisy and common sense.

First 25 minutes or so are somewhat promising but after that it becomes more and more clear that the purpose is not to laugh at contemporary art per se but to blame its providers and consumers for hypocrisy when they don't live their lives according to noble explanations of the art. The Square keeps telling us that self-preservation is wrong and it's immoral to think anything but the best of others.

So a 2.5 hours long (and I mean LONG) comedy that barely makes you smile, and drama that has characters you don't want to see that keeps promoting a message you don't agree with doesn't sound too good. A film this long needs to have a story, structure, relatable characters, humor or something to keep me entertained - just anything. The Square has almost nothing for me.