Trier's English-languaged debut has been praised by many, but NOT by me. This is the essence of mediocrity: forgettable, not moving, not interesting, not dramatic. There is really no point to this. The cinematography is beautiful, the editing is quite inspired and interesting, but the script is awfully bland and the otherwise fantastic actors and actresses are wasted and utilized in a horrid way. Eisenberg is just plain old Eisenberg; Byrne can't save his character; and worst of all: Huppert is reduced to a boring character with no real depth or energy. It's all so incredibly lame. There are a few subplots in it, but it doesn't feel like it has a real plot or story that can drive the additions. Besides, the entire thing with the youngest son is that he likes to play Skyrim and he writes bad poetry that brings him success with a girl (realistic much??). This entire premise is horrible and made me sad for whoever wrote this uninspired crap: it's a big bowl of nothing. It's worse than nothing, it's boring, a void, a complete waste of time and Huppert. I hated it and almost couldn't finish it. Besides, a bunch of morals to the story did bother me: none of the characters are likable, but I feel like they were meant to be. The journey is not a journey, but a stagnant and static group of characters in a dull setup. It's not bad. It's just mediocre. Incredibly mediocre. Normally, the quite impressive productive forces behind a movie like this can make it count, but this one will be forgotten completely in five years - only remembered by the handful of people that could relate to one of the characters. I couldn't... Five out of ten. And maybe four on a bad day.
