The Other Me

The way I see this movie is quite straightforward - it makes you think. It pushes you to delve deep down your soul and find answers to something you see but can not perceive easily. The manner of direction is splendid - it's warm and cozy, with a touch of dreamy effect that makes you all enchanted until you see the final cut of the scene. It's lucid that people are tired nowadays. Most of them don't enjoy witnessing something that remains oblivious. They'd rather sit down with a sandwich and watch kitsch, or a crime story or a fervent romance that usually doesn't occur in life. What does transpire is the verity that we are born with a man and a woman living inside us. They navigate our life, they switch the driver's seat as required - they go hand in hand. It's just some people refuse to see it, some deny it. Some even don't realize it. But I believe that's one of the most important ideas of the film - to signify (in an artsy way) that the moment we acknowledge the aforementioned, the moment we accept it, only then we become complete.

This dreamy-like movie isn't perfect, but life isn't either. I love the non-linear approach of the theme, how it drives you beyond senses we usually perceive to the highs of truth and oneness.

The movie gets there. We are limited by what we see. We need to feel, to suffer, to elevate.

Carefully written stories like this broaden our perspectives to respect each other more. To allow ourselves to be who we are. To allow ourselves to get there.

By releasing the traumas and burdens of any kind, we become lighter. We are ready to see ourselves. To see the other side.

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.

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.

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.