mightytaiger

Love Zemeckis but this was absolutely awful and didn’t have any of the elements that make his movies great. I would have never guessed this was directed by him. Characters are cliches, dialogue is amateurish and the pace is terrible. Not to mention the choice of soundtrack is corny. “Sympathy for the Devil” when the irreverent character (who doesn’t really add anything to the story) is introduced-? “Ain’t No Sunshine” when the main character goes back to his life without a woman-? You can’t be serious. Someone of Zemeckis’ stature should know better than to make these unsophisticated choices. This could have been a made for TV movie. Don’t waste your time. Regardless of what Roger Ebert says.

Being Oscar nominated or awarded means nothing anymore. This film was nothing but demoralizing and badly written.

Although I have for the most part considered Guadaguino to be just an OK director, or "mid" for lack of a better term, I was excited for this movie as I felt that he was breaking ground and honing on his craft with Bones And All (which I loved). Well...The first thing that stood out to me was the terrible dialogue. It would be acceptable for a student film but for a movie of this hype and back up, absolutely not, and I believe this is where the movie stars crumbling. The movie "says" a lot and shows very little. The premise is solid but something about it felt to me like it was rushed during the writing of it. This is confirmed when by the end of the movie you see no development in any of the characters. The most memorable line was when "Art Donaldson" says: "Come on, she is an accomplished young woman" about zendaya's character "Tashi" during an after party, to his fellow tennis player and supposed best friend "Patrick"... A couple of 20 year old men at a party are looking at photos of a woman they have a crush on, and they refer to her as "an accomplished young woman"?? It would be a nice world where such exchange would be believable, but in this case, it brought out a giggle. That is 1 of several "gems" all throughout the movie. The fact that most of the plot is spoken (Tashi tells Patrick that Art thinks she set him up to humiliate him, yet we never see this exchange between Art and Tashi, and how this affects Art emotionally or puts a strain on their marriage) instead of shown, makes it really hard to emotionally invest in the so called "love triangle" which is supposed to drive the movie. You have no proof of the 2 men having a solid friendship (it is more of an awkward pissingcontest). You have no proof that they love Tashi beyond initially seeing her as some unattainable dream girl when they were teenagers. And you have no proof that Tashi loves anyone or anything. Not even tennis. She just tells you some half baked "analogy" between tennis and relationships, and you are supposed to fill in the rest. The only thing she seems to love is to scowl, have explosive and staunch opinions of the way other people play tennis, even though she never got to "hit it big", and have terrible taste in men. If we really zoom in, none of the characters are accomplished enough within tennis to be so wrapped up in that world, especially so close to retirement age, and none of them do anything that really makes us believe they have a deep connection that they cannot let go of each other, whether romantic or purely sxual. They are terrible to each other, in pursuit of what? Guadaguino will tell you (tennis and the love triangle) but he will not ACTUALLY show you. The non linear editing doesn't really add anything to the story and the sound department seems to be very amateurish as the soundtrack comes and goes in very sudden and hectic ways, and at times is louder than the dialogue itself. The "up to you" ending was even worse than the constant product placement of about every drink you can find at 711, plus Dunkin Donuts, Adidas, Apple and Uber... makes me wonder if it was due to budget reasons or if it is that Guadaguino is trying to sell USA audiences what he, as a foreigner, thinks the USA is. Which, while we are on the subject, the tone of the movie at times is more The OC or Gossip Girl than some high brow film about power struggles with tennis and sx at the center. Would have rather spent those 2 hours rewatching Bones And All.