EC AHF

Honestly, don’t bother… When I was 10 years old, my friends & I put on a school play for the entire school during assembly. Somewhere at the 15 minute mark, we lost the plot of the story I’d written and we just kind of made the rest of the story up. We wandered around the hall in front of kids and staff, trying to carry on but each of us not having a clue what we were supposed to do next. It seemed like hours until the head of year (eventually & thankfully said) “Okay girls, I think we’ve run out of time and you’ve run out of ideas.” The Owners is that school play. If it had a premise, I’m guessing it was ‘skint guy is sick of being skint’ which is a weak basis at best. If there was a plot, being a sequence of events that ultimately plays out to fairly tied together story and ending, I missed it. Or realistically, there wasn’t one. It’s a movie that is completely directionless, a series of utterly absurd events (that were meant to have meaning in the supposed story) and at no point offers any reason for anything that happens. Maisie was miscast. She didn’t come across as a young woman who would have the slightest interest or investment in her boyfriend. Rita Tushinghan (Ellen) overacted & went from confused & frail to a decisive & capable lunatic at times with no trigger for it. There were bits & bobs added to the film that just had no relevance whatsoever. It’s not even an irreverent movie. It’s just badly put together & a poor film. I don’t recommend. At all.

I’m not sure where the idea about Stella Gibson being obsessed with having intimate relations with younger men came from - some reviewers seem to have really missed the point of her character. The story is about a male serial sex offender and his crimes committed against a particular type of woman. The main characters being Stella Gibson, the detective almost self-assigned to the case and Paul Spector, the serial killer who is also a husband and father with a job miles apart from his crimes. It shows both the lead up to the murders from Spector’s point of view - his planning, his manipulation of relationships around him including his daughter and wife and ultimately, the crimes he commits, themselves. Then from the police’s angle, mainly focussing on Stella Gibsons role. Within both of these angles, lie side-stories with interesting characters. Gibson has a mild dislike for men and is more concerned about her career than with relationships - which is portrayed in snippets of her backstory portraying intimate but short relationships with men. She hints at being assaulted herself, of being interested in the idea of financially solvent, independent women have the choice to stay single but having the freedom without prejudice, to have intimate encounters with men. Her drive is not obsession-driven around men but on her career (which ultimately, she chooses over committing to serious relationships) So again, reviewers describing her as being ‘obsessed with younger men’ is way off from what the story actually portrays. But I guess people interpret things differently. The acting is pretty good from Jamie Dornan who plays the killer. As the story develops, so does his character and he gains more screen time to cultivate his character. Before this, I found him to be fairly dull. This is partly how The Fall works so well. There’s no rush to show us everything at once which leads to a dark building storyline with lots of twists. Gillian Anderson is, as usual fully enveloped in her role and she’s brilliant. Her accent is spot-on. There are side stories which in themselves are fairly gripping. It’s beautifully shot. The tension building is perfect throughout. Thankfully, this series didn’t fall into the ‘woke’ genre… I did find Spector’s daughter quite annoying and it was strange how his son didn’t really feature. But I found this series to be more about women - the female psyche - than about the killer himself. So maybe the father-daughter relationship focus was fully intended. A great series, I binge-watched 1 to 2 although I haven’t yet watched series 3. Not that it really matters but I gave it 4 stars just because some of the conclusions Stella reaches about Spector were far too convenient and contrived.

There are over 18,000 movies on Amazon. Choose ANY one of those films over this ...

Awful. Steve Coogan’s accent is entirely off-putting. In fact, it sounds like all the actors were asked to put on a bad American accent so as not to emphasise how bad Coogan’s effort was. I love SC, don’t get me wrong. I’ll watch anything and everything he does or is associated with but this... terrible film. Sentimental, slow, dragging - in dog years, this film is 2 years long. Miscast too, I’m my opinion. What a shame.

I’m 55 minutes in and the plot/storyline is still unclear. I don’t know how this movie will tie it’s remote ends together but I’m writing a review before it’s even over. Yawn... Well. Actually. There’s two great things about this film. The lighting. It’s sunny and colourful and beautifully shot throughout. And. Paul Rudd’s eyes. Enjoy.

Cliched. Cringeworthy. Uncomfortable to watch - waiting for the humour or anything interesting, to happen. It doesn’t. Swerve this film.