The Other Me

In 2022, the year of the worst films ever made in Hollywood history, any film that is not a cartoon, crappy horror, superhero, or a Disney film, automatically gets at least a four star rating or higher (unless it is an utter piece of garbage). This film, The Other Me, is a case of the third eye, or the eye of the mind as some would explain it. I am not a big fan of psychodramas, but this one is almost passable because the plot is not 100% predictable, like well over 90% of the films of 2022. Our protagonist is a person gifted (cursed?) with the ability to read minds and motives of people instead of just seeing them. This comes in handy for Texas Holdem. He should have played a few weeks in Vegas and made a few mil.

Just the other day I made a comment here in a review for another film about how so much streaming has given us the opportunity to see unknown gems or films of interest that we never heard of or had the interest or opportunity to see in a theater. This is an example of the opposite providing us with a window to films that most would never want to see. I've no idea how to really review a film that is incomprehensible to me. I know some of the events I saw such as the beginning in which a man is told that he is going blind, his marriage is on the rocks and he meets a "mysterious" woman living in the forest that he seemingly falls for just about instantly. Very little after these facts make any sense to me. I first saw the lead actor here, Jim Sturgess, in the wonderful Across the Universe in 2007 in which he was both excellent as an actor and a singer and I predicted a big future. Despite working a lot, I'm not sure if he has ever been in a really good film since then, though that does not mean he is a bad actor and he even isn't bad here, though the character is absurd. The other two principals are Andreja Pejic as the woman in the woods and Antonia Campbell-Hughes as the unwanted wife. Pejic, at least here, cannot act and Campbell-Hughes is presented in such a dreary fashion it's hard to muster any interest in her. The writing here is a complete mess and this is an awful film.

Frankly, I hated it.

I kept watching to see if somehow the dots would connect. I rewound trying to force them to connect; collected clues that led nowhere.

Unfortunately, the dots didn't connect to anything at all; the balloon dream was a moment of interesting visual but just another dead end. Not a single character redeemed the film. At best they were all unlikable; even the doctor who delivered the diagnosis.

It felt as though I was trapped in a modern art museum with a bunch of people looking at a blue square and pontificating a meaning. There was none to be found...just sad, random dots and an hour and forty minutes that I can't get back. My advise, skip this movie. Anything you spend the time doing will be an improvement.

I really enjoyed the surreal energy of the movie. I liked the colors in it it just felt like you are watching a dream. However this movie tries to tell lots of things such as betrayal, true love, childhood trauma, looking deep in to the life but you can't connect all of these things together and in result you can't connect to the movie and the characters. Everything just feels overwhelmed.

Even subplots don't add anything to the main plot and make you wondering "okay so what was that?" I feel it would be better if the writer and director would have sticked to one or two subjects in the movie.

The script is junk, and so is some of the acting - except for Andreja Pevic who was excellent! And perhaps the only reason to watch this movie (hence FF - she stole every scene she was in, perhaps because her character may be very close to her real life persona). Some of the cinematography is quite competent if not downright good - nothing groundbreaking because you think you might have seen the images before - but it alone can never save a lousy script especially in a character centric story like this one. More backstory to provide more insights into Sturgess's character better anchor his story.