Ridiculous

Rating: 4/10 (31 August 2019)

This is gonna be a long one so probably no one is ever gonna read it but I need to get of my chest how bad this movie is on so many levels. How critics could like this I have no clue because if you look at the craftsmanship here this is amateurish.
So one of the main problems is the script. Starting with the premise which can be summed up in two sentences. That's something you can do with a lot movies to give the audience a quick feel what it is about. But here you don't need to wrap your head around how to sum it up because it is so painfully simple which leads into the next point.
The premise or the setup of the drama is very simple but Allen takes an hour to get there. No joke you could edit this movie down 90 minutes and you would not loose essential information or details. Which leads into the next problem.
It is predictable until the last half hour. We will get to that. And if I say predictable I mean after 10 Minutes until minute 90 I can tell you everything that will happen which also isn't really much. Sometimes I can even predict the lines which leads to my next criticism.
The dialog is just horrible. I saw "Vicky, Christina Barcelona" and I remember the dialog to be alright. But here not only is it very wooden(no pun intended) and unauthentic it just feels functional. We have to say this to get to that. It feels like checking boxes and it is the cliche dialog that you wouldn't expect in an Woody Allen movie.
Let's get to the characters shall we. Well basically Jonathan Myers is the only one in this movie. I wouldn't dare to call the other one characters because there are just stereotypes. We got the nice but a little spoiled Emily Blunt who is a wonderful actress and she is really trying but here role has no range. We got the stereotypical rich parents and we got the sexy but a little screwed up affair. Scarlett is not to blame because despite being sexy Charlotte you can see here why she became the star she is.
So let's talk about the only character in this movie and also his performance. I think I have never seen Jonathan Rhys Meyers in anything and after Matchpoint I am not shocked. Don't get me wrong. He is not terrible but he never passes mediocracy. Two huge problems here despite his performance. What an odd casting choice. He comes across very arrogant. I would cast him for a villainous role which is a major flaw right from the beginning because we never feel for him.
Second point is that is character is just not believable which I think is both the fault of his acting and the script. He is the former poor boy now enjoying the good life which will make him do crazy things. With one big exception. He never seems to care about any of it. You never see one single scene in this movie where he actually enjoys his wealth which he will explicitly state later that he enjoys it. He feels like going through the motions. And we ask ourselves: You moron why would you live this live and not be with Scarlett. You don't seem to enjoy it one bit right from the start.
The last half hour I don't want to dissect to not spoil anything but it get's into not one bit believable mode.
There is much more to pick apart here like the big cliche rain kissing scene straight out of a Nicholas Sparks movie but at this point it doesn't really matter. Bad script, bad lead actor, no interesting characters, bad dialog in a story that is predictable and 40 minutes to long. This is bad bad film making and if you would replace the directors name by someone else the rating would be much lower. Ridiculous.