One and Two

I am so confused, what did I just watch? It feels like a movie that is arty and philosophical but it isn't. The only reason to watch this movie is if you have an hour and a half to kill and you really like Timotheé Chalamet. It is a beautiful film at times, aesthetically pleasing. The story goes nowhere and if there is a meaning to it, it is lost on me. Maybe I am not deep or arty enough to understand it. It seems to have some religious undertones. Sometimes it is meditative though to watch something that has a beautiful boy in it and some nice nature shots.

a photo album more than a film. because it reminds old themes, in right mix, well known characters, gestures and facts expected after the the first moments. the special children, the isolated space, the pressure of past, the father who does the right things in the wrong manner are pieces of a film who not surprise but it is far to be a disappointment. the only problem is the status of reminder. the director not propose a story, his story. only replace the same ingredients in a neutral manner. result - a beautiful film, first for its fragility, for images, for the references to Gothic, Scandinavian art, Sci. Fi. and a trend about special young people. the problem - the story has a fine potential and the silence, so generous used, could be better made.after its end remains only the flavor of a special form of poetry. like old pictures from an album.

Probably One And Two would be consigned to obscurity save for the fact that one of the four principal cast member Timothee Chalamet has gone on to stardom in the movie big leagues. Chalamet and Kiernan Shipka play a brother and sister who live on a remote farm and have some unusual abilities, abilities inherited from their mother Elizabeth Reaser who is subject to seizures and not long for the world.

His own kids scare the pants off their father Grant Bowler who punishes them every time they use their powers to transport themselves. The idea was clearly taken from the British science fiction series The Tomorrow People where kids could just transport themselves anywhere on a whim.

An interesting concept but the film moves so slowly it becomes unbearably dull. In the end I'm not sure what the point was.

Weird little film. Starts off promising and remains promising throughout, it just never does anything with that promise. Smart enough to come up with believable constraints on children who can teleport themselves (and yet are confined; i.e. there has to be line of sight to where they are going to poof to next, so put a bag over their head and their powers are gone), and equally clever enough to figure out ways around that.

But it moves at a pace that is, at first, leisurely, and later as the "action" ramps up (or more accurately as there are changes in the situation) the film slips even further into sleepwalking. It sets up interesting developments but then deliberately doesn't really do anything with them. The filmmakers seem averse to exploring any of the multiple concepts that are sprinkled throughout. Perhaps it's as simple as they were not as clever and smart as their own premise.

It's frustrating that so much could have been addressed but the filmmakers act just like the film's characters; dour and non-communicative to an extreme. Simple visual effects are believably handled; performances are strong; there is even a whole scene here or there that is everything you might want it to be, but then the film meanders away as if it has no clear idea where it wants to go or why it wants to get there. Or why we should stick around for the ride.

There really is nothing worth investing this movies length to endure for what you get. It was a happy enough ending but the journey there was pointless. It's basically Jumper only they truly do nothing with said abilities. Movie is composed well enough but again there's no real point for any of it. The only positive is it ending with Outro by M83, but even then I wouldn't give this a +1 even (or 6/10). It isn't good it isn't bad, it's just a neutral 5, flat and entirely nothing. If my only purpose in life is to leave some sometimes helpful reviews and sway others from wasting more valuable time then I can live with that.