Overindulgent, long but beautiful

Rating: 5/10 (11 November 2019)

I really wanted to love this movie and for a lot of reasons, it was exactly what I wanted... different, visually beautiful, strong actors and great music... so what's my problem?
The length of it. 2.5 hours is a long time and when done right, it engulfs you and time flies by. With this film, Ari still has some work to do knowing when the audience needs to see a scene and when he just wants wants us to. It could have been so much more if he had tightened up the script, the scenes and the dialogue.
There was an unnecessary 45 minutes of film that could have been chopped and it would have been great but the longer it went on, the more I just sat there resenting the time I was wasting.
He is a great director and his vision is unique and I do respect that but length isn't everything and his pacing needs work.
I ended up feeling the characters outstayed their welcome, they were just moving from scene to scene. I just began to mentally check list scenes from the trailer where they ended in the film. It's was a great idea bogged down by meh pacing