Only half so engaging

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2014)

A period/costume drama directed by Stanley Kubrick? Those were my initial thoughts. It certainly has some of Kubrick's touches of perfection, the nice, crisp cinematography and control of everything on screen. His style oozes through. I still don't think this is all that great or anything. The first half all works as set up, but it's just not as engaging as it should have been. The second half is definitely where I was constantly engaged, and so I definitely recommend this. It's basically a "rise and fall" picture, although much less likely as one would have thought. The technical aspects of this are pretty amazing, but as it is, it stands in Kubrick's lower half of films.