Kareneo

I thought this was a beautiful, thoughtful film. People complain about the darkness, well - it's authentic to the period in that after sundown there's not a lot of easy light to be had, in wartime, where even candles would be a luxury. The singular jarring aspect for me was Kidman's evident botox, but she's a brilliant actor so ultimately the storytelling and the incredible cast pulled me in. A slow build of beatifully framed moments, truly - visually stunning! My favourite part? It didn't paint anybody as the bad guy. Lonely repressed women, starved for adventure and freedom. A young man surrounded by beauties, wanting primarily to survive - playing the game to ingratiate himself, but pulled every-which way by the two-way street of desire. The atmosphere in the house thick with petty jealousies, entrapment and longing, everyone trapped by circumstances. Subtle, beautiful to look at - amazingly well done!

Excellent so far, brilliant casting, so happy - finally someone's building a good story, creating a mood, clever writing and good performances. I'm excited to see if they'll maintain the quality, but based on what I've seen so far, it's very well done. And - what's with the negative reviews? Looks like very high quality to me, and is elevated above the usual pedestrian tedium and predictable scripts.

I get why some think it's okay, but really, it's for people who don't really care for details. The settings are excellent, they assembled some good acting talent, but the film itself is worse than flawed, it's just truly awful. The pacing is shocking, like a student film made by 12 year olds. No idea how to pace it, no idea about scripting, no idea about helping the audience to care about any of the characters. Honestly? I'm surprised it got made and managed to scrape together some good acting talent. I hope they got well paid for this abomination, because it really is terrible.