Airene

Ever since the Melanie/Timothy Heller incident went down I stopped listening to Melanie's music and over the years, kind of forgot about her. When I heard about her new album K-12 I was super excited. I wouldn't call myself a die hard fan but I found her past album, Crybaby, enjoyable. So onto the positive: THE. VISUALS. Absolutely amazing, the entire time I felt like I was walking in a dream with the occasional eerie scenes a pleasant contrast to the movie. The music was great as well, I am so happy that I haven't seen any hatred towards her (because of the Heller incident), because I knew how hard she worked on this. I think that the break from music/public was exactly what she needed and I'm so happy to see her back and creative as ever. The choreography was absolutely amazing. Anyone that appreciates visuals will love this film. Now....onto the negative: - The plot was a mess in my opinion, there was just so much going on and I feel like it was trying to cover too many topics at once (ie. homophobia, eating disorders, mental illnesses, etc.) The songs by themselves have messages by themselves, but I felt that smushing the entire album in the film made the points it was trying to make seem less impactful and more cliche. Anyone can tell that the lyrics and message that they carry with them are heartfelt and must have taken a long time to write. With this being said, I wish that they hadn't tried to smush all of them in one film. Another complaint with the songs were their placement. I had trouble deciphering exactly where they fit into the plot because a lot of them just felt forced and didn't contribute to the story (which by the way...what?). Rather than making it an entire film, I think it would have been more impactful if each mini-story was made into it's own video where the viewers could see each individual song and lesson for what it's worth and not jumbled together. My last complaint is the story line. It left me with so many questions from the beginning to end which I feel weren't properly answered. The story line was also extremely hard for me to follow (as stated before), and overall not nearly as interesting as the trailer made it look. Aside from the eerie cute aesthetic, the story line isn't terribly unique or interesting to say the least. I was so excited to see what the movie had to offer after watching the trailer - which I watched a LOT of times - and sadly, the movie did not deliver for me. Some of the scenes weren't done the best cinematically either, which is understandable as it is her first film and perhaps the budget wasn't too great. In conclusion, While I'm happy that Melanie is back and in a better place, I can't say this movie is anything special. An hour and a half seems like a really long time for a movie that isn't anything special. With that being said, I would encourage you to see the movie and form your own opinion (its on YouTube for free right now, so catch it if you're like me and don't want to pay), the music is great, the dancing and aesthetic is great. It had a lot of potential, just lost some of the intrigue for me. If she does decide to do something like this in the future, I would be very much looking forward to it!