The Ticket

We all ask ourselves if given the chance would we reach out and grab that lottery ticket if given to us? The idea of everything being handed to us after enduring for so long. Ido Fluk and Sharon Mashihi understand this and perhaps manipulate this into greed and lust - Perhaps? "The Ticket" presents this question, but like most thought provoking questions - This film has no answer for you.

Directed Ido Fluk, from a script written by Fluk and Sharon Mashihi. "The Ticket" stars Dan Stevens (The Guest) as James, a man blind from youth, with a comfortable life with his wife Sam (Malin Åkerman) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner). One day he regains his vision discovering he's not happy or contempt with his life - grabbing a promotion at work, leaves his wife for Jessica (Kerry Bishé) an employee where he works, and mistreating his friend Bob (Oliver Platt) one of James's blind co- workers.

Dan Stevens as always is fierce and enigmatic as James. Stevens is careful not to have you sympathize with James and the choices he makes along the way - But to ponder on each choice and wonder what's driving him. See, like each character in "The Ticket" (And there aren't many) they all have something driving them - something they want. Sam is fine and happy with going dancing, rather than an eloquent restaurant. She's also tired and Malin shows this beautifully. James, however, wants more, and Stevens never slows down giving us a moment to blame James for his choices.

Director Ido Flunk beautifully directs, with a unique visual flare centering around James's point of view. Where the film falls would be the predictability of its plot and lack of motivation for its characters.

"The Ticket" is a well made film with a deeply moving performance from Stevens.

"If you leave, you can't come back."

How would you react when you lose your eyesight at a young age, leaving you the rest of your life depending on others, never having seen your wife and child, with no idea how your environment looks like and working as a blind in a Call center for a real estate company (in other words, a hopeless job). And then one day you wake up and you realize you can see again. I'm convinced that it'll be a shock. Finally you can see how attractive your wife is and at the same time find out she's a real control freak. You discover you have a cute little son who's being bullied at school for some time and you're wife never told you about it. And the house you live in looks quite dusty and old fashioned with that flower wallpaper. And on top of that, you are satisfied because you see a pretty attractive guy when looking in the mirror. Time to shape up and become the better flirt, I'd say.

This all sounds quite plausible. But James (Dan Stevens) turning into an arrogant, egocentric jerk who only wants to enrich his personal life and get that promotion as soon as possible so that he can improve his materialistic life, felt a little exaggerated to me. Sorry, but the first thing I would do was to go to a zoo, an amusement park or the cinema for example, so I could admire what I missed all those years. But no. James rather starts an ego trip, forsaking those who supported him all these years. A beautiful example of someone who exchanged his physical blindness for a total emotional blindness.

The question is, of course, whether this was a natural healing or a divine intervention. James' daily prayer, with him thanking the Lord for his rich life full of well-meaning people, perhaps finally paid off. Maybe that's the reason why he came up with this luminous idea to convince people in church to sell their homes right now and get rid of everlasting debts. In his sales talk, he always uses the story about the person who desperately wants to win the lottery and prays for it every day. But he never buys a lottery ticket. I think the message is as follows : if you want to change your life, you also need to act in such a way that this change is possible. In my opinion, James is convinced he has won that winning ticket, after piously praying for years. But the actions he undertakes afterwards, are dramatically exaggerated in my opinion.

And how unlikely the turnaround is at the beginning, the more unlikely the turnaround is at the end. Eventually, it seemed the winning ticket was only valid temporarily. Or was it a divine punishment because James let the dark side of his personality dominate? Anyway, I saw the outcome coming a mile away (pun not intended). Personally, I thought the footage where nothing was to be seen, the most fascinating. An impression of how James looked at the world. A black spot with stroboscopic light effects and misty reflections. A successful demonstration of how a blind person experiences his sight. The most emotional moment was the turning point in the dusty dance cafe where James dances one last time with his wife Sam (Malin Akerman) intimately. Despite the artistic character, the many dead moments and the slow pace, Dan Stevens and Malin Akerman know how to give a lively and fascinating performance. "The ticket" won't be a blockbuster like "Beauty and the Beast", but will show a glimpse of Dan Stevens' versatility.

More reviews here : http://bit.ly/2qtGQoc

A film with many details that lead nowhere, All movie scenes are predictable - and became to me a very slow paced melodrama that, I didn't really enjoy. the dialogue between the characters is dry, not developing, heavy. In general this movie is stuck in a slow is neither interesting nor intriguing.

I don't usually exert the effort to write a review, but it's something of a crime that this movie gets such low reviews on IMDb. The other reviewers are the type of people who feel the need to cast their judgment on a film just because it doesn't fit their very narrow definition of a worthwhile film. Does The Ticket ask more questions than it answers? Sure. But you could hardly say it moves too fast to adequately deal with them. One of the beauties of this film is its slow, methodical pace. And the cinematography alone is worth your time. Don't pass judgment based on this film's reviews and decide for yourself.

Streamed this based on a general interest in following Dan Stevens's post-"Downton" career. Owing to this film's totally amateur sound editing, I could not learn critical information about what these characters were like before the health change that became a key trigger for the whole story. Did not know how and why the marriage seemed to work despite hurdles that many would find crushing, or whether the Dan character had ever before shown signs of an aggressive, competitive personality. I just went from one mumbling, whispering personal scene after another to the not only clear but blasting country songs at the dance venue and totally audible phone sales pitches in the workplace. It's only in the indispensable character-developing scenes that this film leaves us high and dry and totally frustrated.

From his IMDb bio page, it looks as if director Ido Fluk has only one 2011 feature-length film to his credit before 2016's "The Ticket," with short films and writing credits (including this film) and assistant directorships in his history. I cannot see how Dan's early (and awkward for everyone!!) departure from "Downton" has led him to projects this lacking in production professionalism and I hope he can right his ship very, very soon. His and Oliver Platt's work is excellent, but how many times can he afford to risk straight-to-DVD oblivion while groping for a long-lasting film career?