Excellent opening, great middle -- then, CLUNK
The first hour or so is riviting satire, with a brilliant opening that announces the complexities of desires and wants and needs, with an interesting sound design. It becomes clear, quickly, that the film is satirizing the rich but also that everyone else is also skewered.
The sad thing is that the film betrays its promise, leaning into didacticism at the expense of the satire. I was sitting there, talking to the screen: "okay, we get it, we get it, move on." Where the film moves to, though, is something akin to "Lord of the Flies," and it also appears to borrow some absurdities from the TV show "Lost."
The film needs a solid edit, particularly with the last third; and the much-discussed ending . . . Well, it's such a non-sequitor that it's useless trying to debate it. It's as though the director acknowledges that the film has nowhere to go, given the weight of the accumulated stupidity; and it just collapses.
Still worth watching, if only for the first 100 minutes.
The sad thing is that the film betrays its promise, leaning into didacticism at the expense of the satire. I was sitting there, talking to the screen: "okay, we get it, we get it, move on." Where the film moves to, though, is something akin to "Lord of the Flies," and it also appears to borrow some absurdities from the TV show "Lost."
The film needs a solid edit, particularly with the last third; and the much-discussed ending . . . Well, it's such a non-sequitor that it's useless trying to debate it. It's as though the director acknowledges that the film has nowhere to go, given the weight of the accumulated stupidity; and it just collapses.
Still worth watching, if only for the first 100 minutes.
- calvintoronto
- Aug 5, 2024