I want to think maybe high expectations hurt my perception of this movie, but honestly I don't know if I would've liked it anymore had I known nothing about it.
I think that it had so much potential, but fell flat with the storyline. His daughter who he hasn't seen in 9 years he reaches out to because he thinks he is dying and when she arrives it is kind of like she hadn't seen him for a week. I know her character was supposed to be unlikeable but her character had really no depth, just hateful and mean. They could've added more to her understandably let down and abandoned personality. That's kind of how I felt about everything though. Maybe had there been flashbacks of Brendan's character younger with his partner, delving into their relationship more or his struggle with mental health or the period when he chose to leave his family....there wasn't enough depth to any of that. No connection to his partner and what lead him to what he became. I wanted to connect more with this story, I wanted to feel more his past that lead him to his miserable future.
I'm also not saying Brendan's performance wasn't good, but I'm not sure I felt it was Oscar worthy. I don't know, I wanted to cry, I wanted to feel it, I wanted the "life is so short and what you make of it feeling" before heading into this New Year, but it just wasn't there for me. And I was bummed.
I think that it had so much potential, but fell flat with the storyline. His daughter who he hasn't seen in 9 years he reaches out to because he thinks he is dying and when she arrives it is kind of like she hadn't seen him for a week. I know her character was supposed to be unlikeable but her character had really no depth, just hateful and mean. They could've added more to her understandably let down and abandoned personality. That's kind of how I felt about everything though. Maybe had there been flashbacks of Brendan's character younger with his partner, delving into their relationship more or his struggle with mental health or the period when he chose to leave his family....there wasn't enough depth to any of that. No connection to his partner and what lead him to what he became. I wanted to connect more with this story, I wanted to feel more his past that lead him to his miserable future.
I'm also not saying Brendan's performance wasn't good, but I'm not sure I felt it was Oscar worthy. I don't know, I wanted to cry, I wanted to feel it, I wanted the "life is so short and what you make of it feeling" before heading into this New Year, but it just wasn't there for me. And I was bummed.