A Carter

FYI, I have never written a movie/film review but this film was so bad and such an irritating waste of time that I am hoping to save other people from a similar experience. I expected better from Charlie Kaufman based his previous works, hopefully his next film will be better. SPOILERS: settings & components (acting, dance, music) While the story itself is interesting the dialogue between Jake and 'young woman' on the road trip is uninteresting for all but about five minutes. The pedantry and pretentious dialogue is overt without having to spend an insufferable period of time listening/watching these characters drone on and on and on and on and on. Listening to the dialogue is like being stuck in a room with someone that is so vacuous you wonder with every breath if you will be sucked through the atmosphere to the farthest points of outer space. I get existentialism, I figured out the 'aha' within the first five minutes of dialogue in the first car scene as it was blatantly apparent. The push to illustrate the 'aha' became annoying before the hour mark. Any reader that loves to settle in for a night/day of reading the writings of Sartre, de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, et al will see the plot and crisis quickly and expect a level of stimulation that barely arrives... beginning and ending with the interior farm house scenes. The acting (Jake's parents are tied for best) is the most notable redeeming quality earning about half of my one star rating with the other half being the interior farm house cinematography. - Acting is good (for the most part) - Farm house (interior only) scenes were well shot - Potentially thought provoking and interesting existential story destroyed with cringey direction and mediocre barely above film school level of cinematography (short of the interior farm scenes) - Painfully pretentious dialogue - Terrible unnecessary and sloppy ballet performance that should've been left on the cutting room floor - Terrible unnecessary musical incorporation, occasional reference was fine but the end song was especially painfully cringey after the neverending pitiful ballet - Film is 2hrs 14min with only about 35min of film that's worth watching If you are still inclined to watch, I recommend the first ten minutes to get you in the 'zone', skip to the interior farm house scenes (watch those) and call it - save yourself almost two hours of irritation and time. If you watch what I recommend you will experience the whole narrative and won't be missing any contributing elements of value. Ignore the 'this is an art film' reviews for your own benefit. I love art films, indie films, psychological thrillers, etc - this film wishes it was one of those but it simply isn't. The best thing I took away from watching this film is a desire to read Iain Reid's book to properly experience the story the film promised but failed to deliver in the attempt to seem 'artsy' (double fail).