eduardo10075

We attended the Canadian premiere of the film recently, in Vancouver, where the film was shot. It was a fund-raiser for future research, which I'm all for (MAPS Canada) and future marketing and promotion of the film. Really the only reason we went was to hear mycologist Paul Stamets speak on in a panel discussion after the film. The film itself is pretty superficial. It's one story, about Adrienne, a hard-core junkie who happens to live in West Vancouver, one of the highest-income postal codes in Canada. Which begs the question: If Adrienne and her film-maker buddies can afford to drive around in $60k Jaguar vehicles, why do they need to pass the bucket after the film (which I've just forked out $35 to see) to beg for more cash donations for the marketing and promotion of their film?!? Don't bother if your main interest is to learn about micro-dosing.

Wow....all the negative reviews suggests this falls in the "love it or hate it" category...any time people react so negatively (or sometimes positively) to something, one should watch it again 2 years, or 5 years later...I suspect some of the reviewers would reverse their opinions completely! I generally avoid 95% of Hollywood films, and picked this up off the shelf at the library...

I watched it twice, first by myself, and then a day or two later with my mother...all the hype, for once, IS justified...it's brilliant! Start with the music: lush romantic classic orchestral for his fantasies, and on-stage, then solo jazz drumming for the harsh reality of here and now, the anxiety-filled present (and since it's set in NY, what music better represents NY than jazz?). Great drum score composed by Antonio Sanchez, but played by Brian Blade? (two shots of the drummer in the film, on the sidewalk and in the theatre lunchroom).

The camera movement and the way shots are blended and seamless is fantastic! The acting is great, as one would expect, and the action-hero theme is nicely complemented by some symbolism and allegory, like the shot of Icarus burning up in the atmosphere....or two shots of squid or something washed up on a beach, (which I can make no sense of)....

Yes, its a Hollywood film, but written and directed by a Mexican, it has an immediacy that draws you in...and rewards multiple viewings!

This film has many fine elements, but suffers from the same ennui as the couple it portrays. I picked this up at my library, and knew immediately I had seen it before, but couldn't remember the end, and had to ride the "fast forward" to get through it! It didn't get better with a second viewing! A bored neurosurgeon "hits a rough patch" with his trophy wife, who sublimates her loneliness with her trophy home and garden! It reminds me of a flaccid remake of Haneke's "Cache", with Auteuil reprising his role as the stone-walling husband, who is smitten by a young Moroccan woman, who may be stalking him with roses instead of surveillance! Kristin Scott Thomas plays the long-suffering wife, instead of Juliette Binoche.

The film also has a couple of disparate elements that could easily have been cut, mainly Lucie's psychotic sister, and a Polish patient's Holocast survival story.

This is a fine distraction, if you have nothing else to watch!