And While We Were Here

I am not going to comment on this movie beyond asking why on earth did the director choose two actors who mumbled their way through much of their lines. And then direct the third actor who wasn't a mumbler at least to whisper a key line. Can anyone tell me what he said to her when they were hiding behind the car? Can anybody tell me what she said to him in another whispered speech when he sat down at their table the next day, not to mention why she would whisper something to him like that in front of her husband. This is not the only movie where I have experienced this problem which seems to be increasing due to the "hand- held" camera plague which is a parallel phenomenon to this mumbling plague, but this one was so egregious at key moments. Sorry, I didn't get any further . . couldn't bear it . . . Annoying!! I was dying to have Claire Bloom make a physical rather than just verbal appearance and bring some maturity to both the movie and the characters. Nice scenery.

I expected something else from the trailer, true.

But I still love this movie. It's so brutally honest. So simple. It's a movie about life and love. The kind ones that actually happen, not some Hollywood bullshit. How lines between people are messy and you can't see where they start and where they end. How some people have a huge influence on us. It's a movie about a woman finding herself. It's raw, but it's real. You have to find beauty in simplicity to really appreciate it. Some people are here just to show us that there is more of this world than what we have. Everything we thought we knew so well and sure about, now we doubt. The things you never thought you needed a second thought, yet you will. Nothing, ever, is sure. We do not see the lines between us, other people and things and that's why it's so hard to break from society and do something else. To have strength to leave something that meant so much to us, to have the strength to admmit that it doesn't no more.

I enjoyed it very much.

Intelligent, we'll-acted drama set in and around Naples. Makes its point unhurriedly. Only criticism is that plot had only one way to go. Oh, and the sepia colour of the print - obviously to align with the mood of the characters but it's a pity that it dulled the stunning setting.

This film had so much potential but went nowhere with an emotionless lead and shallow supporting cast.

There is little to appreciate in this tale of a self-centered married woman taking selfish decisions and doing nothing to make anyone's life any better, including her own.

Overall makes for a very unlikeable film and a couple of hours of my own life I have lost looking at it.

Troubled couple arrive in Naples and settle in. He to play viola for concerts, she to work on WWII novel / memoir. Gorgeous settings of isle of Ischia, offset by serious, depressing tone of a husband and wife who can no longer communicate with each other. She meets a 19 year old, still very boyish, reckless and full of youthful energy. He comes off as initially annoying, and I cannot say he grew on me, but I did get accustomed to him. The plot meanders around as the young wife (Kate Bosworth - quite good here) broods much of the time. Much of her story is internal, thinking and rethinking, about her situation and possibilities. All the time, she is listening to recordings of her grandmother, recalling her own youth. "Chick flick" might resonate more with female viewers.