Z/Web

This is a remarkable film. It is similar to Memento’s reverse technique making for a remarkable film. Granted, for the first half hour you won’t understand much: the intersecting stories have not intersected though there are scenes that show unrelated characters relating, so you realize that there is some kind of connection between these people, you just aren’t sure what it is. What’s well-done, however, is that every scene is interesting, and each scene gives us more and more info about the people. By presenting us with the scenes out of order, the director forces us to make assumptions about the characters, and those assumptions are often proven wrong later, which is incredibly interesting. As far as the story goes, it’s much too complicated to explain everything here, and of course I wouldn’t want to ruin the film for you, but let’s just say that one character loses her husband and his heart ends up inside Penn, and that connection eventually draws Penn and her together. Throw in the story of the man who killed her husband and you’ve got three separate lives intertwining. By presenting their connections out of order the power of the story is magnified. It’s an unusual film, very well done. The only flaw I found is that the movie feels extremely long. It’s only two hours but feels like three. (I wasn’t the only one that felt this: others were complaining as we exited the theatre.) That’s because the short unrelated scenes each seem like a new movie and the story seems to progress at a glacier pace (only a little new info is gleaned from each new scene). The director would have been better to speed things up by taking out 20-30 minutes of footage and having things happen faster. That would have made this a great film. As it is it’s an excellent film, but more of an experiment than a great movie.

I usually admire films that go against Hollywood cliches and try to be different, but every now and then there’s a film that rubs me the wrong way. This was one. Many of you will disagree with me on this movie and that is fine; I change how I feel.

This was a great film: fantastic acting, with wonderful, fascinating characters, and an intriguing story. Basically a recovering alcoholic (Jennifer Connolly) wakes up to discover her house is being auctioned off by the county because of an unpaid tax. It’s a total mistake, but because she was out of it and didn’t respond to letters, the ball is rolling and now must be stopped in court. She gets a lawyer but it’s too late: the house has been sold to a former Iranian Colonel (Ben Kingsley). He refuses to sell it back for the amount he paid, wanting to make a profit, which the county won’t pay without a lawsuit to force them (which will take months). So what we’ve got is a conflict in which both parties are victims: the Iranian immigrants, who are strange but wonderful people, who’ve saved every penny for years to afford to buy this house and are desperate to make their investment pay, and the lonely, troubled girl who foolishly lost the house her late father left to her. We like both groups. Both are sympathic yet have their flaws. In fact, every character in this movie is gray: I have never seen a movie with such a beautiful balance of characters. The people are all flawed yet have positive aspects as well. In most films it’s obvious who the hero is and who the bad guy is: in this movie it’s impossible to tell and that’s the whole point. We’re supposed to be torn by these people and how their lives play out tragically.

However, that’s where the movie goes downhill. The ending is terrible; it’s unbearably sad. The first three quarters of this film made me fall in love with the people, then the ending ruined everything the movie had built. I won’t reveal the specifics of the ending, but it’s incredibly depressing. I walked out of the theatre wanting to blow my brains out. That feeling lingered for hours. It was horrible. Honestly, while I understand why the writer(s) wrote it this way, and perhaps it was realistic and appropriate, it was not a good ending to the movie. The film ends with no hope, no explanation, no redemption, just cold, hard, depressing reality. I’m not saying the events needed to change: the director could have had the same things happen but ended on a different, more positive note. Give us some inkling that things are not so bleak, that there is purpose to life, that the world is not over. But no. My heart sank when I saw the credits begin to roll: the film was over and there was no hope. Honestly, unless you’re a masochist and enjoy being depressed, I cannot recommend this film. It’s too heartless and cruel. The fantastic benefits of the first half, where you love the characters, and is what makes the film so powerful, is all destroyed by the cruel and horrible ending. Though my heart tells me the film’s sad ending just made me sad, because I loved everything else so much, the ending actually makes me angry: I now hate this movie and feel the director ought to be shot. My emotions take new extremes because of how much potential this film had. But it’s ruined by the horrible ending (or perhaps I should say non-ending since it stops where most films continue). There are some who’d argue that this film breaks the Hollywood cliche of the happy ending and that’s good, but I’d have to disagree. Normally I’m not opposed to an unhappy ending, if it’s done in a way that works. For instance, the bad guys are seemingly punished, and even if bad things happen to good people, there’s a hint of hope implied. But in this film none of that happened: it’s just horrible and that’s it. It doesn’t work. I can’t imagine anyone going out of the theatre after this heart-wrenching experience and recommending the film to their friends. Why would you want to force that experience on someone else? Isn’t there enough hard reality on the news? We hear about horrible tragedies all the time — whole families destroyed in a car wreck, for instance — but because we aren’t intimately connected with them, we are able to bear it. In this film we make an amazingly strong connection with everyone and when it ends tragically we are given no way to handle it. I’m sorry, but that’s just bad filmmaking. Go and watch the first 3/4 if you want, but leave before the ending. This is just too depressing.