usernamewithheld

The subject matter and overall meaning behind this story is great; a girl who is involved in a terrible, topical tragedy and finds unexpected fame as a result. It's a wonderful story to examine and discuss fame, pop culture, etc, but unfortunately the overall presentation of this idea falls flat.

The performances were strong, especially and expectedly from Natalie Portman (although I don't agree with casting the same actor for multiple parts). That's kind of where the positives stop. The inconsistent pacing and 'throw everything at the wall and see what sticks' mentality made engaging in the movie difficult. One could argue that the hectic nature of the film is representative of Celeste's thought process, but the execution seemed unintentional and rather unnecessary at times.

I wanted to love this film, and I give kudos to Brady Corbet for exploring this story, but I feel it had a lot to say and ended up not saying much.

If films are going to rely on jump scares to bring the horror, they should at least be creative and unpredictable. This movie is far from that. Every cliché in the book, poor dialogue and script, and underwhelming performances, make this quite a bore to watch. There was a time when silly jump scares could carry a movie but those times are long gone. More horror, less cliché please.