Lemon

This is the only movie that I have ever taken the time to write a review for on IMDb, and my sole motivation is the hope that someone will see this and save themselves the 85 masochistic minutes that I just put myself through. This is one of those movies that you want to turn off from the moment you start but you just keep watching in the hopes that it will get better, and the next thing you know it's an hour in, the movie is still terrible, and screw it - you might as well finish it at this point because the prescription opiates haven't worn off yet.

My girlfriend roped me into this debacle with a trailer that promised a mix between Juno and Wes Anderson, but what I got instead was A Serious Man after it had been eaten by a 400 pound trucker named Larry, poorly digested, and ultimately deposited into a toilet bowl at a rest stop. This movie is so bad that I actually felt it was below Michael Cera to take this role. Michael Cera is too good of an actor to be in this movie. Let that sink in.

This "film" feels exactly like what it is - a poorly executed imitation of some of the great indie films of our time, written by a man and a woman who likely knew that no one in their right mind would make this thing so they had to make it themselves. It has all awkwardness and low-budget characteristics of Napoleon Dynamite but with none of the charm, and its attempts at humor are so forced that I'm not sure an entire bottle of Dulcolax could have moved things along.

We as a society love a good bit of cringe in our films, since art often imitates life. If you like a good cringe every now and then, you might look forward to the scene in which the protagonist (whatever his forgettable character name was) attempts to kiss his (also forgettably named) male co-star. On the surface, this scene should have made my skin crawl, but instead my skin was crawling as I thought about the fact that someone actually invested time and money to put this lightly-polished piece of garbage into the annals of film history and expect people to revere it as art. If this is art then the scab I tore off my leg while watching YouTube earlier today is a Van Gogh.

I could further analyze on a scene-by-scene basis, but frankly I am close to nausea already as I rehash just exactly how angry it made me to sit and watch attempt after attempt to be a quirky indie movie fall shorter than Tyrion Lannister.

I would rather lobotomize myself with a chopstick than watch this movie again.

This film tells the story of a socially awkward man, whose girlfriend of ten years left him suddenly. He tries to live his life as normal, but his life is anything but normal.

Honestly, the first ten minutes of the film is already horrible. The protagonist is such an socially awkward man, and he just does not know how to be around people. The film itself is super awkward as well, as there are dialogs such as a man saying "I need you", then the woman replies "my sister is double parking". This type of illogical conversation happens constantly in the film. The dialogs are so ridiculous and logically unconnected, that the plot just makes no sense. I do not find the film funny, engaging or sympathetic at all. It is a waste of my time, and my poorly informed decision to have watched this film.

The good: everything is off in this story. It's off on purpose though. The characters, especially one, is quite certain a total weirdo, but the whole story oozes weirdness. Not laugh out loud funny weird, but more of a smirky, quirky kinda weird humor.

More good: what made it also interesting for me to watch, were the terrific (weird) soundtrack and the photography. Both were excellent. The acting is great as well.

The bad: weird characters in weird stories can be interesting, but I always need to feel that the main character is humanlike. That isnt the case though, making it harder for me to sympathize with the leading character, who is a total f90k up and a incredibly blunt and unsympathetic weird guy.

The story: an insecure, middle aged f80k up is desperately trying to be succesful in acting and directing. He is terrible at both though. He is a terrible person as well. Just totally unsympathetic. Wanna watch 1 hour and 15 minutes of a weird obnoxious dude?

Recommended only for those arthouse movie fans, who like weird...

This had a point and nailed it. Nothing but dry completely over the top, 'those' people you may know in a less than functional, paint eating, middle and faux-upper 'modern/arty' society. Oy vey, hurts but no regrets.

It's difficult to rate this movie as for me I'd give an 8 as I was really amused throughout. A score for a wider audience would be much lower as it's quite a divisive film. I think the film is trying to make fun of the pretentiousness and self- absorbed nature of the characters, and one of the ways is by filming in an arch, avante garde manner. The style reminded me a lot of Yorgos Lanthimos in the way characters dispassionately speak past each other and the rather surreal nature of a lot of scenes. Most of the characters aren't particularly likable or relatable but that's good in my opinion. Why should a character in a movie be relatable to my life?, and it's the bad or unlikable characters that are the most interesting in a film. That's not to say the characters are bad, just rather solipsistic.