Ruth Learner – Google

I read Amis’s book when it came out as a big fan. Having seen the film I am re-reading the book. The strength of this film is the sound, the mise en scene production and the acting. So quite a lot of ticks. It’s an incredible, churning, dark soundtrack and the forensic sharpness and colouration of the film is bang on (as point of contrast). The casting/ acting is bang on. My critique lies in the adaptation itself. The choice to go the nuanced, subtle almost abstract path - with a spare narrative and a lot of subtext - treads a fine line between gut wrenching inferential horror and self conscious arthouse. What amazes me is how this could so easily have encompassed more of Amis’s brilliant insights without becoming another nazi drama. It’s almost as if there was an either/or choice but having a more developed narrative (re the premise that anything goes in this zone) and showing that, for eg, blue bloods and high professionals dominated these SS etc. ranks (as per Amis book) would have enhanced such a nuanced depiction. However, still a powerful film though could have been brilliant.

The only thing I can say is see Paul Mayer’s review which gets five stars from me - a few down from mine. It is spot on - though a spoiler if u read these reviews before watching. PS one thing I noticed not mentioned by Paul was that none of the main characters seemed to work beyond a bit of cattle walking - and yet had money for pub in middle of the day.. and nobody talked politics- weird omission given the war on mainland. It was just a bit of a convenient vacuum.

The guts of the film worked - not quite predictable and great casting. Personally, I found the bookends and the odd aside did not add anything other than irritation and the soundtrack conjured up Startrek too often and was a little hamfisted and more distracting than anything. Strangely, this had a 70s TV drama feel to it - like one of those kitchen sinky Plays of the Week that dealt with issues like religion or politics. But great script, acting and good short ish length.

The biggest insult to a great filmmaker was a guardian reviewer likening this film to a Polanski film (I assume he meant The Tenant and maybe Repulsion). No. This film is a bad adaptation of what appears ti be a cliched, heavy handed and overblown play. It doesn’t work on every level. The script is tick box every issue you can think of, and there is no arc or dynamic within the script or between the characters - there is no real story at all except the dementia grandma reported arc and email. This stuck out as slightly less hammered. The cuts in of detail of decrepid apartment and life through bottle glass/ dirty windows was quickly overplayed to the point of implausability that anyone could legally rent such a death trap - it lost any kind of symbolism and effect, and just came off as absurd.

the problem with this film is everything. Brad Pitt's inability to act is compounded by the lack of a script, Jolie's a better actor but her character is so uninteresting and so spoilt and so freakish looking (kind of botex drag arthouse) that you couldn't give a flying F whether she lives or dies... and I didn't even get to the end because it's so unbelievably flagged that they can't have a baby - which is about as interesting as the fibre on the rug in my hallway (although in comparison the rug itself is a 5 star film festival). If this film is anything like their marriage, they must be relieved it's all over. I certainly am.

I can't finish reading this novel - it's too didactic - teaching the reader a whole lot of stuff that detracts from the story - research is not why I read novels... ultimately I've lost interest in the story of a menacing AI presence and some moral dilemmas bound together by politics of the 80s which has been historically remixed, for no obvious reason. A shame - as McEwan is a brilliant dark comedy writer, with some tragedy thrown in - Solar was hilarious and undervalued - and numerous of his back catalogue.