Marjorie Prime

What a fascinating premise. Despite the film being almost entirely composed of conversations, it's quite visually cinematic in its compositions and music, leading to my surprise when finding out it's based on a play. Although I can see why many people may not take to those conversations, and I can see many thinking it doesn't really fulfill the potential of its premise, I found it to be an emotionally and thematically rich experience. Both Jon Hamm and Lois Smith deliver some truly fine performances. The latter should especially be getting award nominations and wins left and right for her stunning work.

This film tells the story of a family who uses a technology to bring back their deceased relatives using an interactive holographic technology.

The first ten minutes of "Marjorie Prime" is interesting, especially when the nature of the man is revealed. However, the remainder of the film is just boring talks. They talk for a long time at length, and nothing comes out of the conversations. Nothing happens in the film, except an increasing number of holographic images. I don't get the point of the story.

Its a good concept that delivers an interesting movie about love, memories, regret and secrets. The film lives from its wonderful cast who are all very well picked and delivered good performance, however it suffers from its rather weak direction by Michael Amereyda who tried to make it too artsey for its own sake. Lois Smith delivers a great and charming performance. And I am glad she got some material to work with actually instead of just second hand supporting roles as usual. She really got talent and gave her role a lot of good and interesting facettes. Another great performance came from Geena Davis. One of her best recent performances. Davis really understood her role, which surely wasn't easy and the audience was easy to care for it, at least I did. Tim Robbins was also fine and did have some good and difficult moments. Also not a bad performance by Jon Hamm who might have had the most difficult role but mastered it well enough, even if he appeared a bit wooden, which was intentionally. But what was it with that annoying score/soundtrack? That really played the movie down which is a shame. It had a lot of potential but they tickled the wrong ankles at times. Too bad. Still worth to see for the performances.

If you like great theatre, which is more about great dramatic performances than about special effects and soundtracks, you'll have to appreciate this film, as it features what may be the greatest dramatic performances by Geena Davis and Tim Robbins to date, and brilliant work by Lois Smith and Jon Hamm that does not deserve to go unnoticed.

The very original writing delves into the human experience, into aging, and into the role technology will likely increasingly play in the human experience.

I have a feeling that this is one of those films that will go under-noticed and under-appreciated, but will some day receive a lot of attention for it's prophetic technological implications.

For anyone who has ever suffered a profound loss, this film may have special meaning, beyond the introspective insight that it's likely to inspire in any human being. The story is at times funny, curious, and also sad, without relying on cheap underinvested plot devices or well-timed musical themes to trigger emotional responses.

Being based on a play shouldn't be a detrimental factor in a movie but when it's played like a play, it kinda defeats the purpose of making a film. This one really had the feel of a stage play, done by a small theatre group in a suburban small town theatre company. It did impact a very interesting idea negatively. The film making process added very little to it to help give the story impact. There were some very interesting ideas raised in the film but they were almost lost in the flat delivery. people talking on a stage. undermines the show don't tell aspect of film.