I Saw it Coming

Rating: 3/10 (9 February 2020)

While I give credit to the writer/director (who some people have heard of, although I hadn't) for being able to create a film, what he created was... what? My wife and I watched it last night and, from the beginning, I could tell this was going to be syrupy, self-indulgent, molasses-slow movie that, I assume, drew from his background in theatre and film. The characters in the stock company, the neurotic sister who acted like a child, the child who acted like a brat, the mediator who plays a cartoon character, and the dialogue between the two lawyers that I could visualize being delivered at a table reading kept me at a distance. Then there was the loooooooooong monologue delivered by the lead actress that, as she shared it with her lawyer, seemed so artificial and contrived that I felt sorry for her that she had to read what I'd imagine the writer thought would be an epic presentation. Like the lawyers' dialogue, you could visualize the writer knocking it out and the actress trying to make it real. Instead, all you hear is a Hollywood actress reading a Hollywood director's lines and without the illusion of reality -- which carries all the way through the ten hours of this two-hour film -- it's difficult to get into it. How this got six Academy Award nominations is anyone's guess. Maybe it's an inside joke.