Reviews

I never once care about the characters I am supposed to care about in this movie. Even if one understands the myth this is based on, which I won't explain here, it falls flat on it's face and never recovers.

From the opening sequence the acting feels beyond wooden, and the sets hollow, even though this is all, presumably shot on location and not a sound stage.

The implied sex sequence between Colin and Kidman is neither arousing nor necessary, and feels incredibly tacked on for shock value, which it also fails to deliver on since it is all consensual roleplay. The more disturbing and frankly leery sequence is when the barely pubescent teens are about to engage in sex and the antagonist subtly body shames and then rejects her. The camera focuses too closely on her body, and lingers too long which crosses the line of effective storytelling and confused me as to the intentions of the director and the guardians of said minor child; cinema does not have to continue to peddle such trash.

The rest of the sequences are just as vapid, and slow paced, aside from Alicia Silveratone's amazingly authentic acting in the 3 sequences she was in. She delivered what the rest of the crew could not, or were directed not to, I can't tell which as Kidman's acting is normally this stilted and unfeeling.

I would not recommend this outside of a film study class whose sole focus was to instruct would be film makers on what not to do.

A real clunker.

It is not the place of movies to give you history lessons, and when that style of film is attempted in a ham fisted way it comes of as saccharine or politically motivated. This movie is neither. It instead gives an unflinching look into the areas of our collective history we are too keen to forget.

The pacing of this, over 3 hour, epic is one of it's best features, though if I would have watched this in a classic theatre setting an intermission would have been nice, since I would have been mad that I missed parts in order to go to the restroom, even if they are unfashionable in this era of film making.

The unglamorous violence is properly disturbing and unsettling and places the vile-ness right in front of you without reveling on it's practical effects.

It even becomes self aware of some of the more problematic aspects of profiting off of this type of tragedy, namely white storytellers selling tragedy of native populations without arriving at a conclusion. It feels like Scorsese feels conflicted without becoming preachy about telling this important story and understanding how it can be problematic.

It is not his best work, but it is in his top 3.

It truly deserves Best Picture of 2023 and stands out as authentic in a field of it's overblown and over-hyped competition (looking at you Barbie & Oppenheimer).

If you are expecting to find a properly dosed hard hit of reality or even a realistic depiction of addiction issues then you need to look elsewhere. This movie revels in the grotesque aspects of the afforementioned subjects without a care for the real aspects of the horror. It's only significant contribution to pop culture is the oft too stolen sequence where two of the main characters inject heroin and begin to "come up" on the drug. Some of it's imitators do it better though I fail to remember which ones.

If you thought that Eli Roth, or the movie Hostel and it's ilk were the progenitors of Torture Porn then you are forgetting how much this unwatchable, over-hyped, over-dramatized, and unintentionally humourous film was in the creation of that sub genre of filth.

Being able to operate a camera does not make you a good director. Having your characters perform meta analysis of problematic source material does not make you deep. Being "controversial" for the sake of being interesting is neither controversial nor interesting. This trope filled, pulp fiction, power dynamic rehashing never captures my interest. I kept looking at my watch to count the minutes it was stealing from me and continued to be upset that it was taking so many without ever achieving a salient point. It earned a 2nd star for proficient lighting, and I really wanted to figure out why this art house schlock was being peddled at all. I am tired of casual pedophilia and of adult women being cast as high school students. As the movie was rolling I kept finding myself wondering if the dialogue was directly ripped from the pages of a rejected letter to the editors of a pornographic magazine, and was disappointed to find out it was an original screenplay. Do not waste your time, even if you are into messed up power dynamics there are better made and more thought provoking pieces of cinema or literature available.