msredsonia-180-821704

Lily Collins is a good actor but completely miscast here. She's supposed to have had time to climbed the ladder to DA and raised a child to at least 7 years old while still looking about 20? The family have no redeeming qualities who will do anything to protect their status, Lauren is supposed to be more principled but basically is the same as her father and brother, while not bothering seeming to bother about her own child at all. The premis is daft, she makes silly choices and ultimately you end up not caring what happens to any of them. Simon Pegg did a decent job, but the terrible hair and makeup kept reminding me it's Simon Pegg in a wig and wrinkles. Stupid.

I liked the premise and was intrigued to find out how it all unfolded, and it kept me hooked but was ultimately disappointing.

The main reason being I couldn't like or identify with any of the characters. Maja was self-absorbed and too easily influenced by Sebastian, who was portrayed as pretty much a sociopath. Maja forgives him his awful behaviour pretty early on in their relationship so it didn't really come across as domestic abuse. None of the friends have many redeeming qualities except maybe Samir but even he's a little pathetic. And really, wouldn't her parents have a bit more backbone? Totally vacuous characters.

I also found it difficult to know what Maja did and didnt remember. The screenplay kept this vague throughout. But even though she apparently can't remember much, its no secret from the outset that Sebastian was responsible for shooting some people dead. Yet somehow she's not visibly traumatised by any of it and doesn't seem to have changed her opinion of him?

Overall it was okay and the acting was really good, but I probably wouldn't recommend it if there's something else to watch.

As I write this the film has a score of 6.7!! This is from 63 users who I can only assume must be the cast and crew as this film does not deliver on almost all levels. It was clearly low budget, which wouldn't be a problem if they had more of a choice of interesting sets other than an ugly uninspiring holiday home, an ugly charmless pub and bits of bleak looking scenery. The wild and mysterious Irish seascapes did little to give depth to the otherwise drab indoor scenes, it all ended up looking a bit grey and miserable. I did think the acting was quite good seeing as they had a stilted and unimaginative formulaic script to work with and there were hardly any characters. There was nothing particularly 'irish' about the story despite attempts to conjure up a vibe with a bit of pipe music. It really could have been a story in any remote village. In this village people are seemingly quite willing to answer all of the lead's questions except for randomly thrown in was one hostile resident - no explanation or relevance to that. In addition it was pretty obvious early on who the culprit was. Oh an there was no way that 'Kerry' was 29. Thats about it.