This movie made me feel depressed, cheated and perplexed in equal measure. Why on earth all these glowing reviews? Yes, great cinematography. Yes, great acting. Yes, amazing editing. Yes, beautifully rendered 50s London, and yes, great dresses, if you like the style. Also, the slow pace did not bother my wife and I at all. In fact, for us it was a refreshing change from all the noisy, instant-gratification tosh that seems to be the norm today.
The reason we hated this movie, despite all these positives, is that the morality or message underlying it was deeply sick. I've seen tons of European art movies depicting people doing sick things, but one could normally sense the film makers' underlying vision, portraying the sickness as a warning, something not to be glorified or admired. Instead, this movie glorifies sickness, and what left us most depressed is that, looking at the reviews, nobody seems to realise, or care.
So DDL acts a self-obsessed, narcissistic, control-freak of an artist. So far nothing new. Some reviews mention that the movie portrays "toxic masculinity." Are you kidding me? This may be so, but in fact he's upstaged by a far worse case of "toxic femininity." In the oldest trick in the book, playing on every single misogynist trope around, the main female character poisons DDL to get her way. And the movie rewards her for this. Does no-one see a problem with this? My wife was not impressed, to put it mildly.
Far worse still, DDL eventually realises the manipulations she's up to, and allows himself to be poisoned, a little, as a way of submitting to her. And so at the end we have two deeply unpleasant and damaged people riding off into some bizarre sado-masochistic sunset, with a baby to boot, and we're supposed to applaud this life-destroying, vacuous, manipulative, value-free rubbish because... it's art??? Seriously????
I fear it's another one of these movies that everyone likes because... everyone likes it. Nobody wants to be the kid pointing out that the arty-farty emperor has no clothes.
This impression is also borne out by the many glowing comments about the score. I'm a composer, and while tastes clearly vary, this score was in no way remarkable. Perhaps the makers senses this, because the music was for almost the entire film mixed very far to the back. It seems the only reason for praising the score is that it was done by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, the epitome of chic, arty cool.
The reason we hated this movie, despite all these positives, is that the morality or message underlying it was deeply sick. I've seen tons of European art movies depicting people doing sick things, but one could normally sense the film makers' underlying vision, portraying the sickness as a warning, something not to be glorified or admired. Instead, this movie glorifies sickness, and what left us most depressed is that, looking at the reviews, nobody seems to realise, or care.
So DDL acts a self-obsessed, narcissistic, control-freak of an artist. So far nothing new. Some reviews mention that the movie portrays "toxic masculinity." Are you kidding me? This may be so, but in fact he's upstaged by a far worse case of "toxic femininity." In the oldest trick in the book, playing on every single misogynist trope around, the main female character poisons DDL to get her way. And the movie rewards her for this. Does no-one see a problem with this? My wife was not impressed, to put it mildly.
Far worse still, DDL eventually realises the manipulations she's up to, and allows himself to be poisoned, a little, as a way of submitting to her. And so at the end we have two deeply unpleasant and damaged people riding off into some bizarre sado-masochistic sunset, with a baby to boot, and we're supposed to applaud this life-destroying, vacuous, manipulative, value-free rubbish because... it's art??? Seriously????
I fear it's another one of these movies that everyone likes because... everyone likes it. Nobody wants to be the kid pointing out that the arty-farty emperor has no clothes.
This impression is also borne out by the many glowing comments about the score. I'm a composer, and while tastes clearly vary, this score was in no way remarkable. Perhaps the makers senses this, because the music was for almost the entire film mixed very far to the back. It seems the only reason for praising the score is that it was done by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, the epitome of chic, arty cool.