Chris Cimorelli

Great movie until they rush the ending which undermines the rest of the film/plot.

It starts sooooo strong but starts to go off the rails about halfway through, then the final episodes are just a train wreck. Killer premise, tone and art style that is utterly ruined by god awful writing.

This is a super cute movie. Lucy Liu plays the manic pixie dream girl before films like 500 Days of Summer, Eternal Sunshine and Scott Pilgrim popularized it. Cillian Murphy plays the perfect foil. An excellent rom com.

It’s neither as bad as the critics say, nor as great as the audience reviews would have you believe. The first half hour is a complete mess as the film struggles to anchor itself to a fixed, coherent narrative. It eventually finds its footing, but a great homage to America’s 40th president it is not.

The film was ruined by the most inauthentic line I’ve ever heard in cinema: “And are you acting right now?” That’s what someone asks the main character in the film’s final chapter after inquiring about his involvement in the prison’s theater program. A stupid, inauthentic question that undermines the whole film, because its only purpose is to antagonize the audience. This is not a true story. It it emotional pornography masking as realism.

The film takes a turn in the last 30 minutes that leaves you feeling very unsatisfied. It’s unclear what exactly happened at Cairo’s house, and the lack of clarity is intentional, but based on Jon’s rejection of the midterm piece she submits it implies nothing in fact happened. The script falls off the rails from there. Cairo, once talented and precocious, takes the form of a young devil, determined to destroy the man she viewed as her mentor and muse. A better script would’ve had both characters wake up from their fantasy, step back from the line they started to cross, and go their separate ways. Cairo would go off to college, and Jon would quit teaching and start writing again. Watching two people destroy each other, it turns out, isn’t all that interesting.

This had good potential but it failed to stick the landing. It rushes through the second half. It was a bit creepy, but not scary at all. Sydney Sweeney does a good job with the material. I believed her performance, it just wasn’t a great script and the ending leaves you feeling a bit unsatisfied.

I’m actually speechless. It’s one of the most tragic (and powerful) films I’ve ever seen. Beautiful performance by Zac Efron, who transformed his body like never before. Holt McCallany is great here. Easily the most emotional film of 2023, and maybe the best.

I had no idea Bradley Cooper had this in him. Probably both his and Carey Mulligan’s best performances. It’s worth watching for the makeup alone.

White liberal director exploits Native American tribe to tell story about how white men are evil, while spending most of the film focused on the white characters, namely the director’s two muses: Leo and Bob. Scorsese is great when he directs fiction. He fails every time he pursues material “near and dear” to him. See also: Silence. Another flop.