Bad Behaviour

Jennifer Connelly and Ben Wishaw both give great performances in a film that is just unfortunately too unfocused. Alice Englert (who also stars as Dylan in the film) makes her directorial debut here with a lot of style. The camerawork was very unique and interesting. The comedy at times I think works quite well and I actually think the film could have benefited from having more of it. The problem is I couldn't tell what the film wanted to be. Serious character study or comedy? It seems that she wanted both but fell short in both avenues. I think her heart was in the right place while making this and it even felt like it was probably personal to her. It's just a shame that I felt at arms length throughout the runtime and could never fully connect with the characters.

My first solo film of 2024. Just me in a cinema and after half an hour I was beginning to understand why! "Lucy" (Jennifer Connelly) is trying to have a phone conversation with her daughter "Dylan" (auteur Alice Englert) whilst en route to a remote Oregon retreat. She's thousands of miles away in New Zealand and we get the distinct impression that she's not especially interested. That's a feeling that's quite contagious as we all now endure her experience at the spiritual "Loveranch". A supposedly tech-free place run by "Elon" (Ben Whishaw) that encourages people to open their hearts, their souls and their brains to meaningless waffle about finding yourself. Now insofar as this is supposed to be a parody of this kind of rip-off facility, it sort of works - especially with the arrival of model and DJ "Beverly" (Dasha Nekrasova) to whom "Lucy" takes not just an instant dislike but also the leg of a chair! Meantime the daughter has an incident of her own on the whacky film set where she is stunt artist. That results in her losing her job and racing home to be by the side of her now incarcerated mother. If you weren't bored already, then the best is yet to come - a positively nauseating tale of family discord, a suicide attempt involving some pills and the shallow end of a swimming pool and, finally, some meaningful conversations amidst the forest with running water gently trickling a-foot! Can they salvage the relationship? Does it need savaging? Do we care? Perhaps this read better as a script, and there are times when I felt the wrath of "Lucy" emanating from the screen, but for the most part this is the stuff of a really poor stage play that reminded me again that Ben Whishaw is no great shakes at all on the big screen - indeed, I wonder if he was actually acting at all! As "Yoda" might have said - one fun scene does not a movie make.

This movie was well written. The acting was extremely good. This movie won't serve most people because it doesn't have aliens, gangsters, monsters, zombies, or a major crisis that needs to be averted.

The backdrop isn't the predictable NYC nor any other major city. The characters are average people. No high profile, rich, and powerful careers. This film was about a woman struggling with indifference, regret, guilt, and shame. She harbored anger for the way her mother treated her. Now, she's coming to grips that she treated her own daughter just as harshly.

Mom went to a retreat to reconnect to an inner peace. Emotions were brought to the surface that we're dormant for so long. I know a few women that act just like the mom did here - played by Jennifer Connelly. The daughter, played by Alice Englert was equally impressive. She also wrote and directed the movie at the whopping age of 28.

A great story about people suffering but trying to do their best. Some may say it's a movie about a mother and daughter dealing with mental health issues. Perhaps. However, I saw it more as two women dealing with their past while contemplating how they want their futures to look so the pain inflicted onto them doesn't continue getting projected onto others. It's in the present moments when they become aware how they've been hurt and have hurt the ones who matter the most. The scars are deep. How does one forgive for the healing to begin?

This film captured real struggles every day people internalize. The dialog was very authentic. This is real life family interaction.

I'm not sure audiences can handle common people doing typical things, wrestling with their own sufferings without an alien invasions, car chases, espionage, monsters, tragedy, overcoming extreme odds, or radical shootouts.

You see, it's the audience that's most basic in their own thoughts, feelings, and actions that prevents them from seeing and appreciating the depths of this marvelous presentation.

How can a movie be this bad? Especially with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Whishaw as two of its leads.

The movie starts off with a woman, played by JCon, calling her daughter as she's about to go to a retreat with limited ability to contact the outside world. The leader of the retreat is played by Whishaw, who - as far as I can tell - has never given a bad performance in his life, and isn't about to start now.

Visually, it's a decent enough film. Some of the color grading (like in a hotel scene) can get a bit rough, but it's mostly at least competent, and some shots are very well done.

Where the film fails is in literally everything else. The characters are shallow nonsense; Connelly's character just kind of does things to move the plot forward, Whishaw's character is basically a big bag of nothingness, etc. The story veers off in a strange way that doesn't add to or advance anything that came before. The film has nothing going on upstairs and nothing to say beyond, "Influencers bad".

Add to that the complete lack of anything interesting going on... it's not just a bad movie; it's a painfully bad movie. Something like The Room or Birdemic can at least provide some entertainment while being bad; this doesn't even have that. It drags and drags and drags. It feels like it should end wayyy before it does. It's truly a terrible movie. Easily one of the worst I've seen.

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"Bad Behaviour" is a story about Lucy, a former child actor, seeks enlightenment at a retreat led by spiritual leader Elon while she navigates her close yet turbulent relationship with her stunt-performer daughter, Dylan. This is Actor Alice Englert first directing feature and Englert seems to be passionate about this project from what I have seen from her Q&A session. However, the film really struggles with poor writing and really unlikeable characters.

The main narrative about a mother and daughter relationship and finding enlightenment seems interesting but unfortunately the writing takes way too long to get to the point and many elements that were included felt like filler. The film contains a great cast and the performances are really good as Jennifer Connelly does a fantastic job with her performance alongside with Ben Whishaw. There are also some great camerawork and sound designs used throughout the film. But the messy writing doesn't help the film to be interesting as the writing drags the story and makes the characters really unlikable. The main character was pretty insufferable and moments between her daughter felt undeveloped or rushed.

The dialogue moments were pretty silly, some of the lightening was really awful and distracting, and the direction was pretty messy as it's clear that Englert isn't sure if the film should be a drama or a dark comedy. There were some moments that were unintentionally hilarious as well. Englert clearly has talent on directing but this film isn't really the best feature to begin with a debut. Overall, it's one of the weaker films I had seen at Sundance.

Rating: C-