Make Up

I'm not quite sure what I've just watched .

The trailer indicated that this was some sort of Psychological horror but far from it .

It starts off with a young woman who goes to stay with her long term boyfriend in a caravan park in Cornwall and starts to she suspect her boyfriend has cheated on her but when her suspicions ease it she who embarks on tasting the forbidden fruit.

I quite like the first half this film. The non trippy part , you might say , but the the longer the film went on the weirder it got and less likeable the film became.

The performances are ok but not enough to give the film any heft and in the end it pretty much just fizzles out despite the decisions Ruth makes .

Disappointing.

'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

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.

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.

An 18 year old girl arrives at an out-of-season caravan park by the sea to stay with her boyfriend who works there. She quickly suspects he is involved with another girl and becomes somewhat paranoid. The setting is perfect for the mood and atmosphere the director wants to convey; bleak, lonely, downbeat, and often downright creepy and unsettling. The movie has a very slow pace which in my view works very well, but it will alienate some.

The story has a serious flaw however in that we never really get to know the main character before her certainties begin to unravel and so are not really invested in her plight as we should be. The movie is far more comfortable when tackling her burgeoning friendship with a female character from the campsite than it is when we are asked to believe in her relationship with her boyfriend, which is glossed over and shallow and never really convincing. I like how the director was married to visual storytelling but we needed some kind of conversation between the main character and her boyfriend to believe something was at stake. The ending also falls a little flat, if it can be called an ending. It feels more like we are being told this mysterious, ethereal film was really just a lot of fuss about nothing.

My rating is generous because I like this style of film-making and would definitely watch more by this director, but if she wants to use male characters they should be more than just props and plot conveniences. 6/10