10 pounds of s**t in a 5 pound bag

Rating: 3/10 (29 July 2018)

Let me start by saying that I really wanted to like this movie. It looked visually stunning (and it was), and it seemed like it was an interesting concept...two things that usually make me like a movie. But almost from the beginning it was a disjointed mess. While the visuals were great, it seemed like there were 3 or 4 (maybe 5) different story lines going on. The filmmakers used every trick in the book to try to make the story coherent - flashbacks, compartmentalizing, but the story was just too much work to follow, with too many unanswered story line questions, like:
1) How did Natalie Portman's husband (or clone of him) get out of the shimmer and back to their house? And why didn't he remember anything?
2) What was the point of showing flashbacks of her having an affair with a coworker? And what became of that?
3) What made Josie into a cutter? Why didn't they develop that issue a little further?
4) How did Josie turn herself into a plant so quickly, and why did she even want to?
Then, just when I thought I had a handle on the story and the concept, the last section...'The Lighthouse' reared it's ugly head and totally blew everything to smithereens. It left me saying "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???" I like to think I'm fairly intelligent, but I have no clue as to what the story was really about, and what happened at the end. It kind of felt like a bad acid trip.
This movie could stand a major streamlining of the story and the script., and some better character development...just of the 4 women that went into the shimmer. Most of the other characters could have been left out and it would have been a better movie. Sometimes, less is more, and that is definitely the case here.