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The movie is deceptive how it doesn't fully leave you satisfied or what to make of it, and even grates on you across the running time. Then you stop and look back on it. It is like the King Lear quote in the film itself, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport." The film is not interested in our pleasure. But after viewing it I immediately went back to replay scenes and found myself just letting it unfold again, admiring the magic at play. I absolutely love Paquin's acting, this is an extraordinary performance. First, this is not her. She was a 20something. She understands this monster teenager, and channels her like a demon. The way she explodes into emotion from zero to 100 is pure acting bliss. It's like watching Tiger Woods or something, it is extraordinarily satisfying and thrilling to watch this magnitude and control of artistic craft. It even affords meta-layers, such as how she acts for her high school class to mirror her mother. And she just blows everyone off the stage; but the teenagers don't even bat an eyelid. They can't understand just how passionate and talented she is. Rory Culkin even says, "We're just teenagers." It's the Shakespeare quote again. They are dropped in the middle of this ocean, and Lisa, played by Paquin, is a monster, but the most pure reflection of her society. The mother is fascinating as well. She is moving through it like a ghost, but not vacant either. Her character doesn't even seem to be a good actor, just a working actor. But the way they all argue and yell at each other is pure cinema kinetics. This is also a film you won't find people praising the cinematography. It is not gorgeous and it won't belong in museum frames; so I think the movie, like Lisa, dares you to like it. At times the aesthetic is almost video camera. This is a great film to be sure, but also a 9 rating is somehow rarer than a 10. It's just too on-the-nose about its intellect. The dream scene wasn't needed. The strident thing felt more like a Jesse Eisenberg moment of neurosis, not Lisa; the Margaret poem too on-the-nose, Jean Reno's fate was a cinematic lapse where the film crosses the line into pure directorial indulgence, the abortion--it's just one idea too many going into a teenage checklist. I think a 10 is one that wouldn't be leaving so many disparate pieces. It can't not be said, if this were released in 2007 as planned it would have been so vital and new. Even today, it preceded many of these three hour arthouse films we are seeing in recent times, and beats them handily.

The film gets finer on every viewing, and now posthumously, it is impossible for me not to read it like a prophetic lightning strike. The sister pairing from Nixon and Ehle is one of the most perfect and complimenting screen sisters I've seen, both are sensitive, Vinnie feels just as much as Emily, she is just more stoic. It is impossible not to think of those haunting performances of Liv Ullman, but this comparison robs the film its originality, with its 19th century American setting, and Nixon's acting that is so personal and unique. She is in some kind of trance. You don't doubt that she believes every word of it. Every emotion, she imprints on you and you understand this picture of the artist and their state. This is also the most witty of all of Davies screenplays, where its interest is not in the passion and theme, it is constructing strings of dialogue like mysterious puzzles. I am only reviewing this because it's in the 6's, I suspect it meets audiences where they are. Sometimes films are ahead of us. To me it is Davies best film because he met a subject that both compliments and transcends his vision. Nixon counters the director's every instinct, while he affords her the center stage; the mark of a great director is to step back. For her, it was a role of a lifetime, really it should have won every award under the sun. I am pretty critical about the kinds of female performances that are awarded. They are child's play compared to this movie. But it wins something better than cheap awards: the canon, universality, eternal relevance. In the sub-genre of films about artists, it is there with the great artist films like Pollock, Vincent & Theo, The Agony and the Ecstasy. The film was just caught up in that 2016-2018 era of audiences where everything was disposable and audiences were cynically only interested in cheap thrills. Many critics were behind it, but for audiences, it felt like homework, the kind of film a teacher puts on during class. Maybe you have to wait for that one right night to watch it where you're most vulnerable to its themes. The film not operating in the abstract, it transcends any theatricality and feels real. It stands alongside the great Ingmar Bergman masterpieces.

This is operating in a long tradition of avant-garde cinema. 1960s visual experimental cinema from Brakhage, crossed with The Beatles and Pink Floyd animations, through the 90s with Churchill's Mind's Eye, Korine era MTV, and all the drug-infused music and cultures. Now you have to mix in the early 2010s Kanye West rap with Kim Kardashian wrapping elbows at his side, post-humor from Tim and Eric, and Sam Hyde's MDE, his own Spring Breakers. Korine doesn't forgive, Korine doesn't forget. He collects aesthetics as they come. But we should abandon zeitgeist all together to understand this. The aesthetics ran a coup and kicked the artists out.