The Girl in the Bathtub

This should never have been a movie! The fact that it was a true story enticed me into watching but usually when you watch a true story turned into a movie, the story is compelling - sadly this was not the case with this movie!

Avoid avoid avoid!

First let me start by saying it's a great movie. The bad reviews are very undeserving. I think that those who didn't like the movie were expecting a different kind of movie so let me set you expectations right. This is not a big budget Hollywood movie. It's a movie based on a true story about a young woman who was found dead three days before her 27th birthday. The movie is told by the woman herself. She is telling the viewers about the events leading up to her death. The big thing you need to know here is this: even though you spend the entire movie wondering who killed her, this is not your typical whodunnit kind of a movie. It's not about catching the killer, it's about the woman and the people around here. It's about human behavior. It's basically a sort of a cautionary tale. Watch this movie with an open mind and chances are you gonna love it. I know I did.

I love Caitlin but I don't think the movie is giving justice to the actual Julia Law. The was it's being director is similar to desperate housewife, where we hear Julia's voice talking about her death. Shame!

Watching the movie evoked memories of the song Runaway Train by Soul Asylum, "runaway train never coming back, wrong way on a one way track". If what the movie depicted is true, she was probably set on the wrong path when her dad left her and whatever else came after that in her childhood.

It would be easy to label Julia a drama queen, an addict etc. But that would be underestimating the impact of trauma. Most people struggling with addiction are trying to escape from trauma and self-hatred. She was also addicted to older emotionally unavailable men, i.e. Men like her dad. It is called repetition compulsion and it is entirely unconscious.

In spite of her efforts at cleaning herself up, she could not find the one thing she really craved - a man who would always be there for her and love her unconditionally, the substitute for her dad. I do not hate the story because it is an important story of parents messing up their kids. But I hate the storytelling; having Julia talk about her own death is weird. Moral of the story, unless you are prepared to love your children, do not become a parent.

I know nothing about the real case inspiring this film.

I appreciate the effort of Catlin Stasey to propose a reasonable portrait of Julia. But the film seems propose , in some measure, a too large webb.

Sure, loneliness, opportunities, refugies in alcohol and sentimental relations are good themes, not so bad used in this case.

The problem can be the unconvincing story and the not just inspired final reminding more a sort of compromise.

A portrait of life after the death is temptanting , no doubts, but not easy to craft. Exactly this is the serious problem. The result, expression of noble intentions, is not exactly bad but far to be a convincing one.