Make Up

Newb filmmaker Claire Oakley did a fine job at directing, but the writing was paced slower than a snail's pace. The 86 min runtime felt like an eternity, and there were far too many unnecessary random few-second shots. It made matters worse that lead Molly Windsor's role was drab and depressing. It's a good metaphorical story, but should've been a short film instead, which is up Oakley's alley. Cinematography and score were decent. It's a 6/10 from me.

Unlike most reviewers on here I thought this was a terrific movie. Low budget yes, but all the better for it in my opinion. Much more realistic than those glossy films that have had a load of money thrown at them. And to those complaining about its slow pace, it says more about your lack of concentration than anything else. It allows the characters room to develop and the atmosphere to build. There is a sense of foreboding and the thought that something awful is about to happen. Coming of age/coming out dramas are not my usual fare but this was really well done.

I enjoyed watching this. It did not easily fit into any genre, and was all the better for that. A rather episodic film, with no clear linear narrative, but it still retained my interest throughout.

It really captured the bleak, barreness of an out of season caravan park, with its motley collection of residents with nowhere else to go.

A bit overloaded with symbolism at times, but definitely worth watching in my view.

A young women discovers more than she expected when she goes to live with her boyfriend on a bleak Cornwall caravan park as the season closes. Conjuring an array of potential outcomes from the off, it's left to the viewer to fill in the gaps and provide the explanations for their meaning as the haunting, occasionally claustrophobic and suffocating sequences play out - for real or imagined. Ultimately a voyage of discovery, that stays in the shallows, doesn't sail too far from the coastline, narrating a familiar tale but done so in an imaginative way.

'Make Up (2019)' follows a young woman who moves to a caravan park in Cornwall in order to be with her long-term boyfriend. As she adjusts to her new life, she finds herself increasingly unsettled by a mysterious redhead and the gnawing feeling that something just isn't right. The piece is a small, isolated experience that focuses on putting you in the perspective of its quiet main character. Its story is a blend of the overtly mundane and the subtly bizarre. As such, its genre is difficult to define. It really is an odd one, a relationship drama infused with often genuinely unsettling suspense - the stuff that belongs in a straight-up horror. That contrast creates an uneven experience that often feels like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. That's actually rather fitting in retrospect, as uncertainty is a major theme of the movie, but it makes for an inconsistent in-the-moment experience. On top of that, the affair sometimes borders on being dull. It gets increasingly interesting as it goes on, though, and it does a good job of putting you in the head of its protagonist. It often succeeds in getting under your skin, featuring several disquieting scenes that almost put actual horror films to shame. Once you realise what it's doing (and has been doing all along), it becomes a lot more interesting. It explores its themes in a rather innovative way, subtly and slowly unravelling its material. It isn't exactly exciting but it is often engaging. It's a solid and unconventional first-time effort. 6/10