cbrleah

I'm a huge Springsteen fan, but this was hard work. If watching Jeremy Allen White look moody in a hot rod, wearing flannels is your jam you'll enjoy it (I did enjoy those scenes though tbh). I also found the story line with the single mother to be gutless; a working class rock musician, falls for a single mother ingratiates himself into her life and her daughter's life only to ghost her and leave her on the dust heap while he emotes all over the place. I did throughly enjoy seeing Marc Maron on the big screen again. I think the Bio Pic genre needs to be retired for the next 10 years.

I didn't have strong expectations but I did enjoy this. It is basically a carbon copy of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, which makes it largely predictable if you're familiar with the genre and previous iterations of Nosferatu.

Unlike Coppola's Dracula, there wasn't a strong story line that connected Ellen and the Count which I think undermined the plot development and believability of the Count's obsession with her.

Generally I liked it. I've read some reviews saying how comedic it was particularly the Dafoe character, but again - if you're not familiar with the legacy of the Van Helsing character and humour than I guess you might find the role comedic rather than manic.

It's hard to stomach or appreciate how despairing and lonely life in such an isolated hamlet of a place at such a point in time would be. This film manages exceptionally to convey in brutal comedic darkness how uneventful & limiting remote living would be. Grudges, gossip, misery, & sheer madness driven from boredom. Slow moving but perfectly threaded and perfectly endearing. You are engrossed in every character. With sympathy for their humour &suffering. Where Sunday church is a staple of connectivity and drinking from 2pm a ritual to create and confront. Is the rift driven by sheer boredom to force change? If you only have one life and everyone will forget you anyway, wouldn't you want to at least live a good & kind life to the people you share it with? Barry Keoghan is simply magnificent beyond compare. This movie deserves all the awards thrown at it.