This movie kind of sucked

Rating: 4/10 (13 May 2007)

They actually did quite a good job portraying a situation here.. using heavy makeup to make Aileen look like she's had a though life. She manages to do good face-acting. But 109 minutes of overdone mouth-corners forced downwards while smiling become really annoying, it gives me a sense of irrealism even if she's had a though life. And the annoyances continue.
The movie would be somewhat more successful if I could identify with one of the characters. But Aileen snaps too quick and Selby puts up with that and too much else to the point where it becomes lame. They are both pretty annoying people and the drama they get themselves into is pretty self inflicted in a way that prevents any compassion from the audience's point of view. Selby's cute (and innocent) face does affect this in a good way though, but that's overshadowed by annoyance and heavy predictability. What should have been a powerful aspect of the movie that would make you more tolerant to all the annoyances, namely their love for each other, is shown far too meagerly to make up for anything.
Finally there's voice over by Aileen, being a bit cool and it could make the movie more powerful, but it turns out she isn't narrating the story at all. It's like she randomly remembers to say something. Carefully written, this could be far more powerful.
Love, compassion, narration and predictability all have failed in this movie, making it close to a waste of time to watch. Although the last one isn't very flexible when photographing a true story.