Caught this at this year's virtual Sundance Film Festival. Like any A24, the production value is good and the performances are great. Julianne and Finn both do an incredible job of playing infuriatingly cringe characters in a way that doesn't feel completely absurd, but is definitely uncomfortable.
You do get invested in what will ultimately happen to their storylines, but ultimately, it's kind of exactly what you'd expect, and you can see if coming from 10 minutes in. The real question is, how do two people that have grown so far apart actually start to do the work to come back together and open up to each other's love? However, the movie shies away from that. It's really just the first part of their story arc - how they grow so far apart that they're forced to come back together, tails between their legs. That is the most emotional part of the me - you're DYING to see them come to each other in some honest way. But then, it's over. I think it's much easier to show two people stray from each other and go "off the rails" in their own way, but it's hard to explore the journey back. I wish this movie had chosen to tell more of the difficult part of the story, because that's where the true emotion lies.
You do get invested in what will ultimately happen to their storylines, but ultimately, it's kind of exactly what you'd expect, and you can see if coming from 10 minutes in. The real question is, how do two people that have grown so far apart actually start to do the work to come back together and open up to each other's love? However, the movie shies away from that. It's really just the first part of their story arc - how they grow so far apart that they're forced to come back together, tails between their legs. That is the most emotional part of the me - you're DYING to see them come to each other in some honest way. But then, it's over. I think it's much easier to show two people stray from each other and go "off the rails" in their own way, but it's hard to explore the journey back. I wish this movie had chosen to tell more of the difficult part of the story, because that's where the true emotion lies.