I must have been one of the few people in the world not aware of the controversy around this movie and its original trailer. I watched it after seeing it in Netflix’s trending section and reading the updated description…so I had none of this background coming in. So my reaction…doesn’t include anyone else’s drama around it.
That being said…I honestly had the same reaction in that while the intention of the movie may have been one thing…it is lost in the execution. It’s just not a good movie and it has a couple of messages it doesn’t quite get off well.
At first, you find yourself rooting for the main character, her mother is dealing with her father bringing home a second wife, she’s an outcast - ridiculed at school, there’s a repressive religious and cultural aspect as well. It’s set up to make you want to see her prevail. But because of what the director/writer does with the character in the story…you end up not really knowing how to feel about her.
The infamous dancing scene comes at the end of the movie…it goes on far too long and is extremely uncomfortable to watch but is preceded by an almost as troubling violent event…her pushing a rival who can’t swim into a lake and not helping when she realized the girl can’t swim. So, do you keep rooting for a possible child killer? Then when the end of the movie comes and the character is somewhat “redeemed”…you don’t quite get how the character got there…but again that’s more of a result of the lack of story development.
All this being said…I wouldn’t cancel Netflix over it. And honestly…for the past few days it’s been listed in the top 10 movies on Netflix…so I’m guessing others won’t either. The thing about it is…all this hoopla has probably put more eyes on the movie than it would have ever got.